Cristiano Ronaldo- Biography, Age, Family, Marriage, Club Career.

Cristiano Ronaldo, whose full name is Cristiano Ronaldo dos Santos Aveiro, is a Portuguese professional footballer and plays as a forward for Serie A club Juventus. Ronaldo is a captain of Portugal national team. Cristiano often considered the best player in the world and widely listed among the greatest players of all time. Cristiano has won 5 Ballons d’Or and 4 European Golden Shoes, both of which are records for a European player. Cristiano has won 29 major trophies in his career, together with 6 league titles, 5 UEFA Champions Leagues, a UEFA European Championship and a UEFA Nations League title. He is a prolific goalscorer who holds the records for the most goals scored in the UEFA Champions League (128 goals) and also for the most hat-tricks in recorded history (56). He is among the few recorded players to have made more than 1,000 professional career appearances and has scored more than 700 senior career goals for the club and home country team.

In 2015, he was named the best Portuguese player by the Portuguese Football Federation. In 2003, Cristiano made his senior debut at the age of 18, and earned over 160 caps since. He appeared and scored in ten major tournaments, this made him become Portugal’s most capped player and his country’s all-time leading goalscorer. Cristiano scored his first international goal at Euro 2004 and helped his country team, Portugal, to reach the final of the competition. In July 2008, Ronaldo assumed full captaincy, where he led Portugal to their first-ever triumph in a major tournament by winning Euro 2016, and also received the Silver Boot as the second-highest tournament’s goalscorer. In 2018, Cristiano became the highest European international goalscorer of all-time.

He was ranked the world’s highest-paid athlete in 2016 and 2017, among the most marketable and famous athletes in the world. From 2016 to 2019, Cristiano was the world’s most famous athlete by ESPN. In 2014, Time included Cristiano on the list of 100 most influential people in the world. He is also the most followed user on both Instagram and Facebook account as of April 2020. Cristiano was ranked the second in Forbes list of highest-paid athletes of the decade, with earnings of €720 million between 2010 and 2019. Ronaldo is the first footballer and only the third sportsman to earn $1 billion in their career.

Age

Cristiano Ronaldo was born on 5th February 1985, in São Pedro, Funchal, on the Portuguese island of Madeira.

Family

Cristiano is the fourth and youngest child in a family of Maria Dolores dos Santos Viveiros da Aveiro who was a cook, and José Dinis Aveiro who was a municipal gardener and part-time kit man. Cristiano’s great-grandmother on side of his father, Isabel da Piedade, was from the island of São Vicente, Cape Verde. Cristiano has one older brother, Hugo who was born in 1975, and two older sisters anmely Elma who was born in 1973 and Liliana Cátia “Katia” who was born in 1977 and is a singer. He grew up in a Catholic and impoverished home, where he shared a room with all his siblings. His name Ronaldo was added to Cristiano’s name in honour of his dad’s favourite movie actor, Ronald Reagan, who was United States president at the time of Ronaldo’s birth.

Marriage

Ronaldo has a child who was born in 2010 though the identity of the mother is not yet known. In 2017, Cristiano became a father to twins.

Club Career

Manchester United paid over £12 million to sign Cristiano, a record fee for a player of his age, in 2001, when he was 16 years old. Cristiano Ronaldo had turned heads with a mesmerizing performance with Portugal against Manchester, wowing even his opponents with his footwork and even deft skill. Cristiano made such an impression that a number of United players asked their manager to try and sign the young player and the team did. In the 2004 FA Cup final, Ronaldo showed his promise by scoring the team’s first three goals and helping them capture the championship. He signed a five-year, £31 million contract in 2007. Cristiano again justified his high salary, a year later, when he put together one of the finest seasons’ club in history, setting a franchise record for goals scored (42 goals) which earned him the FIFA World Player of the Year honor for 2008. He helped steer Manchester to three premier league titles.

The Spanish soccer club, Real Madrid agreed to pay Manchester a record $131 million for the chance to sign him. His commitment to Manchester had come under constant question, and speculation swirled that he wanted to play elsewhere, so no-one was all that surprised to see him leave. Ronaldo told reporters that he knew that he would be demanded a lot to be successful at the club and that he was going to have much more pressure than at Manchester because he was there for several years. But it meant a new challenge and was going to help him be the best footballer. Ronaldo went on to compile an impressive list of individual honors and the team trophies. Cristiano won his fourth Ballon d’Or award as the sport’s player of the year, in December 2016, beating out Lionel Messi of Barcelona. His 2016 wins included the European Championship, Champions League and Club World Cup as well as individual awards from UEFA and France Football magazine. Cristiano claimed a fifth Ballon d’Or, the following year, to tie the mark held by his longtime rival, Lionel Messi.

In July 2018, Ronaldo was signed by Italian Serie A club Juventus, which paid a $140 million transfer fee to his old club. He paid tribute to Real Madrid fans in an open letter on the club’s website, writing that these years at Real Madrid and in the city of Madrid had quite possibly been the happiest years of his life. He only had feelings of great gratitude to the club, to the fans and to the city. He could only give thanks to all of them for the love and affection that he had received.

Cristiano Ronaldo
Cristiano Ronaldo