Rangers legend Walter Smith believes Paul Gascoigne had even more natural ability than Cristiano Ronaldo.
The former Scotland boss worked with both, with Gazza helping inspire his Ibrox side to Nine In A Row.
Smith also had a brief spell on the coaching staff at Manchester United where he worked with a young CR7.
The Portuguese has gone on to score over 700 career goals, winning five Champions League titles and being named Ballon d'Or on five occasions.
But asked if Ronaldo was better than Gascoigne, Smith gave a somewhat surprising answer.
After initially seeming stumped he replied on the Keys and Gray podcast: "Cristiano Ronaldo made everything of the abilities that he had and he's gone on to have the career.
"Gazza was always going to be up and down.
"In terms of overall natural ability, Gascoigne was probably above.
"Remember, my experience of Cristiano Ronaldo was only for a short period of time.
"Gazza was a bit longer than that, but Gazza was all natural - he had no thoughts on tactics, football, training or improving at this or that.
"He just wanted to play football, he was like a schoolboy.
"Give him exercises and things like that and he wasn't really that interested. If you give him a game he would start on the game.
"He had fabulous talent, but I'm afraid that any other aspect like game knowledge - great players that I happened to work with like Graeme Souness for one, you could see he had a game knowledge, he learned the game.
"Gazza never learned that, he just played football. He was fantastic.
"He had a great two-and-a-half or three years at Rangers. He was terrific, he really was."
Gascoigne's attitude to the game stood in contrast to Ronaldo, who wowed Smith even in a short spell working with him.
Former Manchester United midfielder Darren Fletcher insists it was the Rangers legend who helped CR7 become the player he is - by refusing to give free-kicks in training.
Smith explained: "When I went down Cristiano was there - what a talent.
"You could see the talent in him, though obviously at 18 or 19 he still had a bit of maturity to come.
"He would dribble all the time, and I didn't realise that it was a very, very competitive environment at Manchester United.
"So any time you had a little game or anything like that, Mike (Phelan) and I would always argue about who was going to referee.
"Neither of us wanted to ref it! But Cristiano was one of them, he looked for a foul all the time.
"He was doing that in games and everything, so after being there about three weeks I got fed up.
"So I never gave him a foul - in fact I never gave any of them a foul, I just let them play!
"It's nice of Darren to say that, but it wasn't an intentional thing.
"I mean, Cristiano Ronaldo would make himself a player. He didn't need any help from me.
"He was a hard worker, he trained exceptionally hard, he practiced these free-kicks and everything.
"I'd never seen anyone take free-kicks the way he did. He taught himself that.
"He's gone on to have a fantastic career.
"Remember, I was only there for five months - this isn't modesty it's just the facts.
"I think I got him to release the ball a bit quicker and if that did make him better it was to make life easier for me to stop them all arguing about my refereeing decisions!"
