Published: 19 August, 2009, 10:46
Edited: 7 February, 2010, 14:04
Cristiano Ronaldo said “no” when Andrey Arshavin approached him to exchange T-shirts after the game, the Arsenal star recalled in an interview with Russia’s Sport channel.
“I never wanted to exchange T-shirts with anybody,” Arsavin said. “But once my wife asked me to do it with Cristiano Ronaldo, but I couldn’t fulfill her request. Why so? I don’t know, he just didn’t want to exchange T-shirts with me.”
The players met on the field during World Cup 2006 qualifiers, when Russia and Portugal were in the same group, and they may face each other again in this year’s UEFA Champions League.
The Gunners made a huge step towards reaching the group stage of Europe’s top competition after beating Celtic 2-0 in an away game on Tuesday.
“But I acquired Fernando Torres’s uniform after a match with Liverpool,” he added. “I wanted to present it to one of my youth coaches, who collects No. 9 T-shirts.”
  Arshavin’s youth coach Sergey Gordeev with Fernando Torres's T-shirt |
The 29-year-old said that the fact that he’s older than most of his Arsenal teammates doesn’t mean he has more experience.
“Fabregas is just 22, but he’s already made more than 300 appearances for Arsenal,” Arsavin said. “And I don’t think many other Gunners have less games at the top level than I do; they compete in the Champions League more often and made more caps for their national teams.”
The captain of the Russian national team also said he’s made several friends during his first season at Emirates, and he’s eager to communicate with them off the football pitch.
“Maybe I’ll invite some of the Arsenal boys to come visit me in Russia,” Arshavin said. “I’ll be glad to see Eboue, Bendtner and Fabregas. St. Petersburg is a wonderful city with many places to go.”