'What have I done?!' - How kicking Cristiano Ronaldo led to Real Madrid defender being banished

There was no malice in said tackle, but it did get him into trouble. Across his record-shattering spell at Santiago Bernabeu, five-time Ballon d’Or winner Ronaldo was considered to be untouchable - with eternal rival Lionel Messi enjoying a similar standing at Barcelona.

Team-mates were encouraged not to hand out unnecessarily rough treatment to superstar performers, with their fitness considered to be crucial to the collective cause. The last thing Real needed was to see Ronaldo ruled out of action after taking a blow from a colleague.

Hernando admits that he stepped over that line on one session, with the 27-year-old - who is now on the books at Racing Santander - telling Cadena SER of how he risked being ostracised by Real: “I accidentally kicked Cristiano. Seriously, I didn't even mean to put my foot in. But in a play where I saw he was definitely coming, I went to the ground, he touched the ball slightly, and I hit him in the Achilles tendon, which was a cruel kick. 

“I thought: 'My God, what have I done?' I didn't train again that year! I think it was around March, I don't remember exactly when, there wasn't much time left until the end of the season, but I wasn't called up again that year!”

It has been claimed in the years since that Hernando was completely phased out by Madrid following his training ground tangle with Ronaldo. He has sought to clarify that situation, adding: “That year, Cristiano went to Juventus , and the following year I returned to training with the first team. Then news started coming out like 'the youth player who ruined his career'. And I was thinking, 'My God, what a snowball this is becoming.' 

“There were also reports saying that I had never been called up to the first team again, that I had been excluded, and that's a lie. It's true that in the two or three months remaining of that season I wasn't called up again, but I returned the following summer. In fact, they were counting on me for the following pre-season and I couldn't go because of an injury, but they were really counting on me.”

While enduring one forgettable moment with Ronaldo, Hernando boasts plenty of happy memories for his time working with ‘Galacticos’ in Madrid. He was given the chance to train under World Cup-winning Los Blancos legend Zinedine Zidane.

Hernando said of that experience: “At first, you can't believe it, and on top of that, I went to pre-season for the first time without having trained with them even a single day in Valdebebas. Suddenly, I found myself training, eating with them, living the day-to-day life in the hotel, and I was a bit shocked, without being aware of what was happening to me. 

“That year, I started training a lot with them and I realised the impact it has, and I think that, because you're not aware of it, maybe you don't take advantage of it as much as you should, because you end up seeing it as something kind of normal. When I left there and the years passed, I started to give it the importance that it should have.”

Former Spain U21 international Hernando left Real Madrid in 2021 and is now turning out in the second tier of Spanish football. Ronaldo severed ties with Real in 2018 - as their all-time leading goal-scorer - and is still going strong at 41 years of age with Saudi Pro League side Al-Nassr.