For now, Ronaldo is kicking the ball as a forward for Serie A club Juventus and also captains the Portugal national team. So far he has won 29 trophies in his career, including five Ballons d'Or and four European Golden Shoes.
The 34-year-old was born on February 5th, 1985 in a family with 3 older sisters and brother. His mother Maria Dolores Spinola dos Santos da Aveiro was a cook and his father José Dinis Aveiro who died in 2005 was a municipal gardener and a part-time kit man.
Ronaldo started playing at an early age for amateur team Andorinha from 1992 to 1995. Soon football became the most important thing in his life as he started playing semi-professionally as a young teenager. In 2003 he joined Manchester United at the age of 18 and helped the team to win three consecutive Premier League titles. He left the club after six years in 2009 to join Real Madrid. This transfer was the most expensive association football transfer up to that time as it worth 132 million dollars. Ronaldo is Los Blancos top scorer in history with 372 goals in 360 appearances.
The last point before going through the facts is to know that playing professionally is not the only way for the famous star to earn money as he collects more using his famous brand CR7 in addition to various business ventures including his hotels and clothing line. However, no matter what, he is not the richest soccer player in the world. But who is it? In case you want to know the answer, check it out on “The richest football players in the world”.
Facts You should know About Cristiano Ronaldo Let’s go through the facts:He was named after Ronald Reagan It would be interesting to know that Ronaldo’s parents decided to name him after Ronald Reagan as he was his father’s favorite actor and plus they thought the name sounded strong. Reagan was the US president when Ronaldo was born in 1985.Young Ronaldo didn’t like going to school They say that when you are good at something, you’re the worst in another. It seems like Ronaldo was not different as he was not good at school and was expelled. In fact, he admits that it was because he wasn't interested in school. The reason for him being expelled from school was that he threw a chair at his teacher who he said disrespected him. Interestingly, rather than enrolling him in a different school his mother decided to help him focus on football and so at the age of 14 he started playing semi-professionally.He has a lifetime endorsement deal with Nike After Michael Jordan and LeBron James, Cris Ronaldo was the third athlete to sign a lifetime endorsement deal with Nike back in 2016. This deal is expected to earn Ronaldo 1 billion dollars in his lifetime and which can be referred to as one of the largest sponsorship deals in the world for a sports star.
He is the highest-paid athlete and fifth highest-paid celebrity in the world
As we mentioned he is not the richest football player in the world but no matter what, he is the most paid, based on his talent and proficiency. Besides that, Cris is 6th in the world’s highest-Paid entertainers in 2019 while Taylor Swift is the first and Lionel Messi is fourth, reported by Forbes.
He likes to collect cars
The 34-year-old player owns 19 cars in which the cheapest one is a Mercedes-Benz C220 CDI. The collection includes a Bugatti Veyron, Lamborghini Aventador, Ferrari 599 GTO, Ferrari Laferrari, Rolls-Royce Ghost, McLaren mp4-12c, Mercedes-Benz S 65 AMG coupe, Bentley Continental GT Speed, a Porsche 911 Turbo S, Aston Martin db9, Maserati Gran Cabrio, a Bentley Continental GTC, Audi r8, Ferrari 599 GTB, and a Porsche 911 Carrera S Cabriolet.
Meeting his wife
Ronaldo and his partner, Georgina Rodriguez, met for the first time at a Dolce & Gabbana event as she was a model there. They started dating in 2016 and after only a brief time dating she became pregnant with what would be his fourth child. Cris had a twin named Ava and Mateo that were born to a surrogate mother in America in June of 2017, and a seven-year-old son named Cristiano Ronaldo junior as well whose mother’s identity has been kept as a secret so far. The pair reportedly met in the VIP section of a Dolce & Gabbana event and then secretly dated for a time before making the relationship public. As we all know they are still together.
He had a laser operation at 15 Did you know that Ronaldo was almost forced not to play football when he was fifteen? In fact, in that year, he was diagnosed with a heart condition and had to face the reality that he might have to give up playing soccer. His problem was diagnosed to be a racing heart, which means that his heart was beating faster than usual, which could be really dangerous in a game situation where his heartbeat would be even more faster. That was why he did a laser operation to fix the problem and fortunately went back for training just a few days later.
No tattoos because of blood donation The sensitive soccer player doesn't have tattoos on his body just because he donates blood regularly. In fact, unlike many of his fellow football stars, Ronaldo refuses to get a tattoo because he is used to donating blood at least twice a year. In addition, he became a bone-marrow donor, when his teammate told him about his son that was struggling with leukemia in 2011 and he encourages everyone to join him in helping others in this way. Interesting! Isn’t it?
He saved a child from death
That is not all his generosity. Interestingly, Ronaldo paid for a child's life-saving brain surgery after receiving his parents’ letter. In fact, Ronaldo has been very charitable with his money over the years. For instance, back in 2009, he donated about one hundred and thirty thousand dollars to the hospital that saved his mother's life when she had cancer. He also sold the Golden Boot he won in 2011 for over 1.7 million dollars and donated the proceeds to fund schools for children in Gaza. That is not all as in 2014 he received a letter from the parents of a boy with brain cancer who asked him to donate a football shirt and boots to a charity auction to raise money for the boy's surgery. But instead of that, the king footballer paid for the $65,000 operation and a series of additional treatments that cost 6500 dollars each.
His childhood nickname was ‘cry baby’ Can you even imagine that? Apparently he has been so emotional since his childhood as back then he was nicknamed ‘crybaby’ because he used to burst into tears if he didn’t get what he wanted. His other nickname though was the ‘little bee’ which his friends used to call him as he ran so fast when playing football. As a professional, Ronaldo has been stinging opposition teams for years now thanks to his pace.