New Juventus Defender Joao Cancelo Hopes Cristiano Ronaldo Will Drive Club to Champions League Glory

New Juventus defender Joao Cancelo has spoken of his desire to carry the club's recent Serie A dominance over the last seven years into the Champions League and hopes that fellow countryman Cristiano Ronaldo will play a key role in that.

Cancelo, who sealed his €40m arrival from Valencia last month, was speaking to the media for the first time as a Juventus player and was positive and optimistic about what 2018/19 holds.

"It's a great pleasure for me and all the players to play with a great champion like Ronaldo, I hope we can all win together," Cancelo said.

"Our obligation is to fight and compete in all of the competitions that we are in, we will all aim to do our best. The Champions League is an objective, Cristiano has improved the level of our team but we mustn't forget that there will be other strong teams competing for it."

Cancelo spent last season on loan at Inter and so already has experience of Italian football, experience that he believes has already served to better him as a player.

"Playing in Serie A has helped me a lot to improve as a player, it's helped me to improve my defending," the 24-year-old explained.

"There are many strong players who have impressed me here. Juventus have dominated Serie A for many years and that's why I decided to come, I want to win more titles and carry on winning.

"I can see that the club is very well organised, the training is very intense, almost as if we were playing real matches. I believe that this approach can raise the level of the group and prepare us well for the season."

Juve CEO Giuseppe Marotta has claimed that Cancelo's arrival in Turin actually paved the way for the €100m Ronaldo capture as the two players share an agent in Jorge Mendes and it meant that Juve were already in close contact when it became clear CR7 wanted to leave Real Madrid.