THE SUCCESS STORY OF CRISTIANO RONALDO

Cristiano Ronaldo

Cristiano Ronaldo dos Santos Aveiro is a Portuguese footballer who currently plays for Real Madrid and the Portugal national team. He is one of the most successful footballers in the history of soccer, winning the FIFA Footballer of the year for three times. He is a forward and a left/right winger with 186cm in height.  His current wealth is estimated at US$79.5 million (Estimated by Forbes January, 2016). 

Around 10:20am the world heard the cry of a baby boy at the Cruz de Carvalho Hospital in Funchal, Madeira, Portugal on the 5^th of February 1985. This baby boy was just 52 centimetres and weighed almost nine pounds. That was the fourth born of Maria Dolores dos Santos Aveiro, a cooker, and José Dinis Aveiro, a Municipal gardener. This pregnancy came as a surprise to the family because they never planned to have a baby at that time, making Ronaldo just 18 months younger than his senior sister, Katia. The lower-middle-class family lived in a small flimsy building in a working class community. The baby-boy was named Ronaldo, after Ronald Reagan the US president at that time and the name Cristiano was also recommended by his mother‘s sister. 

 

Beginning of career

His father asked a friend, Fernao Barros Sousa, Captain of the Andorinha amateur football club to be the Godfather of his little boy. At age 8, Ronaldo started his career as an amateur footballer with Andorinha club. His unique talent showed up at that early age and was moved to another football club, C.D Nacional, just after two years of playing for the formal team. Whiles at Nacional he went for a three-day trial with Sporting Lispon, one of the biggest teams in Portugal and was signed up with the team. Within a

season at sporting, he played in 4teams: under 16, 17 and18 and the B team of the club due to his excellent performances.

RONALDO(right): Sporting CP

In a 2003 pre-season friendly match between sporting Lisbon and Manchester United the Manchester players were astonished by Cristiano’s performance and kept talking about it after the match. They urged their manager, Alex Ferguson to sign the young player to Manchester United. After some negotiations young Cristiano signed a contract with Manchester United at a transfer fee of £12.24million making him the first Portuguese to play for United.

At Manchester United

The 18-year-old player was given the number 7 jersey which was formerly worn by David Beckam. This jersey challenged Cristiano to put up his best performance due to the great players who have worn that shirt in the team. He scored his first goal for Manchester United with a curled free kick against Portsmouth in November 2003. On the 29^th of October2005 he scored Manchester’s 1000^th Premier league goal.

In August 2003, he made his debut in the senior team of Portugal and was made the captain of the team in July 2008. On 19 March 2008, he captained Manchester United for the first time. This was a match against Bolton and Ronaldo scored two goals, giving United a 2-0 victory. Conditions turned out to be unfavourable for the 21 year old player, when England supporters criticised him for influencing a referee in giving Wayne Rooney a red card in a match between Portugal and England in the 2006 world cup. Some fans reacted negatively to him when he played on some stadia in England. According to Ronaldo, he was expecting his coach and the chief executive of United to come out and defend him for that action but both were silent on the issue. As a result of this, he decided to play for Barcelona or Real Madrid in the following season but later confirmed his stay at United for another year. 

In the 2007-08 season he was awarded Europe’s top scorer, Golden Boot, with 31 League goals. His massive contribution in that season led to Manchester United’s victory in the 2008 champions League. He also won the FIFA world player of the year in that year, 2008. 

At Real Madrid

In July 2009, Ronaldo was sold to Real Madrid at a transfer fee of

£80million ($131 million) making him the most expensive player in the world. More than 80,000 fans welcomed Ronaldo in the Santiago Bernabéu stadium at his official presentation. Ronaldo kept on his outstanding performance in Real Madrid by scoring 33goals in his first season despite the months of injury break he had. 

In the 2011-12 season he scored 46 goals in La Liga which helped Madrid in winning the La Liga championship. In 2013, he won the FIFA Ballon d’Or for the second time and in 2014 for the third time. As the most key player in the Portugal team he couldn’t perform at his best in the 2014 world cup, due to a muscle injury on his left thigh, which affected the overall performance of Portugal. Ronaldo’s doctor, Jose Carlos Noronha, warned him not to continue playing in the world cup due to his injury. Regardless of the warnings he continued playing for Portugal in their matches. He was able to score his 50^th goal for Portugal in a match against Ghana at the group stage of that world cup.