CR7 – How it all started
Cristiano Ronaldo dos Santos Aveiro was born on February 5, 1985, in Madeira, Portugal. The youngest children of Maria Dolores dos Santos Aveiro and José Diniz Aveiro. Cristiano has an elder brother, Hugo and two elder sisters, Liliana Cátia and Elma. He is now a successful professional footballer.
At first, he spent his early years playing for his local team,
Nacional, and by the time he turned 12 years old, he made his name for himself
as one of Madeira’s top footballers. It wasn't long before he started to catch
the attention of other big Portuguese clubs. Among Sporting Lisbon, there was
also Benfica which is one of the best clubs in the Portuguese league. Cristiano
chose to play for Sporting Lisbon.
Ronaldo was then spotted by former Liverpool manager, Gerard
Houllier at the age of sixteen but Liverpool had no intentions to sign him at
that time because they thought he was too young and he needed more time to
develop his skills. However, in the summer of 2003, when Sporting played
against Manchester United and defeated them, Cristiano caught the attention of
Manchester United manager, Sir Alex Ferguson.
Manchester United splashing out £12.24million to pluck an 18-year-old Cristiano Ronaldo from Sporting Lisbon and promptly handed their first ever Portuguese player the No 7 shirt vacated by David Beckham. Ronaldo was much known for his fancy flicks and step-overs during his six seasons at Old Trafford and managed to be one of United’ most exciting player ever after he won a lot of trophies and FIFA Ballon d’Or award in 2008. “Cristiano Ronaldo was the most gifted player I managed. He surpassed all the other great ones I coached at United. And I had many.” (Ferguson, 2013)
In 2009, Ronaldo moved to Real Madrid with a world record £80m transfer fee. There was no instant success for Ronaldo as he needs to compete with Barcelona’s strangles hold on Spanish football. But the arrival of Jose Mourinho at the Bernabeu looked like being a match made in heaven for Ronaldo. In 2010/11 at the end of the campaign, Cristiano Ronaldo won his first trophy with Real Madrid, the Copa del Rey, and had banged in astonishing 53 goals in all competitions. Ronaldo once again won the FIFA Ballon d’Or award in 2013 after four years in a row been defeated by his league rival, Lionel Messi and had a huge goal scoring records at the moment he played for Real until now (Harland, 2014).
After a successful 9-years with the spain giant, Real Madrid, Cristiano next destination to play is in the Serie A League under Juventus team. Real Madrid agreed to sell the superstar with a reported fee of £105 million. At the age of 33, Cristiano is at the top of his game and although some might think his play time would get limited. Rather, his impact showed to be increasing instead of diminishing with his age. Cristiano has made many achievements and has broken multiple record in Serie A since moving to Juventus in 2018. Here are some of the achievements and record made by the Portuguese superstar so far:
- Fastest player to score 50 goals in Serie A (61 appearances),
- One of only three players to score at least one goal in 11 consecutive Serie A games
- The first Juventus player to score in 10 successive Serie A games
- Scored more goals in Serie A than any other Portuguese player
- First Portuguese player to score a hat-trick in Serie A history and one of only two players to have netted a hat-trick in the Premier League, La Liga and Serie A (alongside Alexis Sanchez)
- First player in Serie A this century to register 33 goals in a calendar year
- Scored in nine consecutive away games in Serie A, more than any other player in the three-point era
- Scored Juventus’ 5000th Serie A goal, making the Old Lady the first club to reach the milestone
The best in the world
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