Cristiano Ronaldo Dos Santos Aveiro, was born in Funchal, Madeira, Portugal on the 5th of February 1985. Ronaldo’s parents were Jose Denis Aveiro and Mario Dolores Dos Santos Aveiro. Cristiano has two elder sisters and one brother. The name “Ronaldo” was added to his name by his father in honour of his favourite movie actor and US President at the time when Cristiano was born, Ronald Reagan. Cristiano and his family suffered from poverty for a long time. Once he had to go to restaurants to find wasted food to feed his family. Yet this boy finally became the best goal scorer in the history of football. Starting his career as a midfielder, he has surpassed the records of legendary footballers like Pele, Josef Bican, Romario and Ali Daei and won every possible individual award and many other trophies with his country and clubs he played for.i..
Cristiano joined Sporting Lisbon football club in the year 2002 at the age of 17. He joined the second division of the club, quickly promoted to the primary division by the club after seeing his amazing skills. He won his first senior career trophy with Lisbon, the Portuguese super cup in 2002. In 2003 Cristiano played his life changing game, a friendly match against the historic English club Manchester United FC, rushing through their defenders and creating so many chances and finally won the game by 3-1 margin. Cristiano was noticed by Manchester United’s manager at the time, Sir Alex Ferguson. He offered Cristiano a contract with Manchester United in 2003. Cristiano then joined with his life changing club Manchester United, got a chance to play with the best English footballers at the time like Roy Keane, Rio Ferdinand, Paul Scholes and Ryan Giggs. Cristiano won his first trophy with Manchester, FA Cup in 2004 followed by three Premier league trophies in 2007, 2008, and 2009, two league cups in 2006 and 2009, one Community shield in 2007 and at last one European Champions league and Fifa Club World Cup in 2008.
He is the last player from the English Premier League and Manchester United to win the European Golden Shoe, Fifa player of the year award and Ballon D’or award for best player of the year, also the only player from EPL to win all these trophies in a single year. He also won the Fifa Puskas award for scoring the best goal of the season against Porto FC in 2009.
In 2009 Cristiano joined Spanish Club Real Madrid for a world record signing fee at the time, of 80 Euro millions. During his presentation by the club, 80,000 spectators were there to see Cristiano in the Real Madrid stadium, Santiago Bernabeu, surpassing a 25 year old record of 75,000 spectators welcoming Diego Maradona to FC Napoli. Cristiano’s usual jersey number 7 was not available at the time when he joined the club, because the club’s captain “Raul” wore it. So he wore number 9 for his first season, scoring 33 goals in all competitions. In the season 2010/11 Cristiano won his first trophy with Real Madrid, where he scored the winning goal against the club’s biggest rival FC Barcelona in the Copa Del Rey final 2011. He also won the European Golden Shoe in the same season for being the best scorer in that season. In the very next season, Cristiano won his first Spanish League title with Real Madrid, helping his team to become the first European club to win 100 points in a league season. Cristiano’s most successful period was from 2013 to 2018, where he won 4 European Champions League titles with the club while being the top scorer in the competition as well.
All together Cristiano won 16 team titles with Real Madrid, including the club’s historic three peat of Champions league titles from 2016 to 2018, three European Super Cups and three Fifa Club World Clubs. He also won three European Golden Shoes for being the top scorer among Europe’s top five leagues, four Ballon D’ors for being the best player in the years of 2013, 2014, 2016 and 2017, three European best player of the year awards in 2014, 2016 and 2017, and two Fifa men’s best player of the year awards in 2016 and 2017.
After winning three peat of historic European Champions League titles with Real Madrid, Cristiano left for Italian club Juventus FC in 2018. In my opinion this is the worst decision he has taken in his career. However, Cristiano managed to win five trophies with the club, scoring 101 goals as well. He also became the first and only player to score 100+ goals in three different Football leagues in the world. In August 2021, Cristiano returned back to his old club Manchester United. In September in his second debut, he scored twice as his team won 4-1 against New Castle.
For his country, Cristiano has scored 115 goals in 184 appearences and has won two International titles, including one European Championship title in 2016 and one European Nations League title in 2019. He has captained the national side since 2007. Few of notable records hold by Cristiano are as, Top scorer so far in the senior career, top scorer and top assist provider in the famous European Club competition Champions league, most goals scored in a single Champions league campaign, most Champions league titles won by a player since its new format in 1992, most goals in the UEFA Euro history, player with the most career hat-tricks, player with the most hat-tricks for his national side and player to won most European best (3 times) and The Best FIFA Men’s player awards (tied with Robert Lewandowski of Bayern Munich and Poland, both won 2 awards each).
Outside football Cristiano is living together with his girlfriend, Georgina Rodriguez, a famous fashion model from Argentina and his four kids. His elder son Cristiano Jr also plays football and most fans see him as a future football star, just like his father. Cristiano also owns a few businesses by his name. He is also a regular blood donator, donating blood every 6 months. In an interview, he once stated that because of him donating blood, he is not having any tattoo on his body. Cristiano also runs a few charity projects to help the children in Syria and Gaza strip. He even auctioned one of his Golden Shoe awards and a Ballon D’or award to raise funds.
Today on his birthday we, the Colombo Beacon family wishes this once in a lifetime player a very Happy Birthday!
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