The Primera Liga champions have been relentless in their pursuit of the Manchester United star all summer, despite his club's insistence that he is going nowhere.

Madrid appeared to have turned their interest elsewhere recently, switching their attention to Hamburg striker Rafael van der Vaart - who notably did not feature when the two teams met in the Emirates Cup on Saturday.

However, while Schuster once again reiterated he is being kept in the dark over prospective transfers, he did admit that the club have not given up hope of luring Ronaldo to the Bernabeu.

"I'm not the person who can say anything about that," he said. "But I do believe the club are working hard to get a solution.

"But we have to see.

"We knew it was going to be a very complicated matter, that it was not easy.

"It's not going to be easy for Ronaldo to come to Real Madrid.

"Do I still want to sign Ronaldo? What a question. Of course if you ask any football coach that question every single one of them would want Ronaldo.

"He is a great player. One of the best.

"Every coach has a lot of objectives and he is a player who would help you achieve those objectives."

Reports in Spain suggest Madrid are on the verge of signing Van der Vaart and that the Holland midfielder could be presented as early as Monday.

Schuster claims he is completely out of the loop as to how talks are progressing.

"I don't know," he said. "I don't have any information about that, I'm sorry.

"But yes, we are interested in that player."

His Hamburg counterpart was more outspoken as he once again slammed Madrid's offer for Van der Vaart.

Martin Jol had revealed earlier that they had rejected a bid of around eight million euros from the Primera Liga giants, and the former Tottenham Hotspur boss now claims they need to up their bid significantly.

He said: "If they had come and asked for Ronaldo for 16million they would have been laughed at," he said. "But we're supposed to jump at the chance of 16million for our star player? That's ridiculous.

"Look at the statistics from last season. He scored a lot of goals and had a lot of assists. He's an important player."

Manchester United reported Madrid to FIFA over attempts to destabilise Ronaldo, and that is exactly what Jol feels they are doing to Van der Vaart.

He has warned the Spanish club to be wary of their behaviour if they want to land the player and claims he has not given up hope of Van der Vaart playing in the Bundesliga next season.

He added: "Of course it's having a negative effect on him and the team - that's almost like a rhetorical question.

"That's why I haven't really spoken about it before.

"We've sorted things out with the player and if Real want him then they have to show some respect and behave in the proper manner.

"We still have the idea of having him as part of our team next season."

Van der Vaart was absent as his current club lost 2-1 to the Holland striker's possible future employers.

And Jol explained: "Over the last few days there's been a lot of rumour and it's been problematic - so it was better not to play him right now.

"We saw it was problematic for the player and you can't play someone if he's not 100% mentally. How can he concentrate?

"So therefore today it was an advantage not to have him as part of our squad."