It is simply unrealistic for the Portuguese to avoid the constant attention of fans and journalists. But does the public really know everything about the best scorer in the history of football and the holder of numerous other records.
In this article, we have collected interesting facts from the life of a popular football player who is currently a part of the top and one of the oldest football clubs, Manchester United. Many of you might have got an idea of who we are talking about. We are talking about Cristiano Ronaldo and some of his shocking facts that you might not know.
The full name of the football player is Cristiano Ronaldo dos Santos Aveiro, and Ronaldo is not a surname, but a middle name. His athlete was given in honor of Ronald Reagan, since Cristiano’s father was a fan of the then American president.
Ronaldo’s family lived very poorly. Cristiano’s mother worked as a cook, and her father as a gardener. Cristiano is the fourth child in the family, he has two older sisters Elma and Liliana and an older brother Ugu. All children had to share one room.
When the footballer was 11 years old, he lived in the football boarding school of the Lisbon Sporting, and saw his family only once every three months. Sometimes the children did not have enough food and they had to look for a way to satisfy their hunger.
Since there was no money, Cristiano and his comrades went to McDonald’s nearby and asked for something to eat. When Ronaldo got rich, he looked for the same fast food workers to thank them.
Cristiano couldn’t finish school. At 14, the future football star was expelled for throwing a chair at a teacher. The Portuguese later admitted that he did so because the teacher did not respect him. Ronaldo never returned to school, fully concentrating on sports.
At the age of 15, Cristiano Ronaldo was diagnosed with heart problems – tachycardia. The career of a professional football player could end before it even started. Fortunately, everything worked out. The athlete underwent heart surgery using laser surgery, and three days after it he returned to training.
Cristiano does not smoke or drink alcohol throughout his career. This may be due to the fact that his father died at 52 from alcoholism. After that, the football player completely stopped drinking alcohol, as it reminds him of the death of his father.
Even when he was alive, Ronaldo tried to persuade him to go to a rehabilitation center, but he always refused to treat addiction.
“He was drunk every day, it was difficult to talk to him,” recalls Cristiano.
Once the Daily Mirror newspaper wrote that Ronaldo was seen in a nightclub while intoxicated. The football player was indignant at such an accusation and won the court, forcing him to pay him considerable monetary compensation.
There is not a single tattoo on the luxurious pumped-up body of a football player. And there is an explanation for this. Cristiano is an active blood donor. In 2008, he even became the face of a Red Cross campaign, starring in a public service announcement under the slogan: “I don’t have tattoos because you can’t donate blood with them.”
Cristiano has a lot of nicknames, but almost all of them do not shine with originality: “Krish”, “KriRo”, “Ronnie”, “Ronik”, “CR7”, “Machine”, “Penaldo”, “Cry-Baby”.
But in childhood, the football player was called much more interesting – “Little Bee” or simply “Bee”, because on the field during the game he was the fastest among all the players.
Almost everyone knows that the international airport on the footballer’s home island of Madeira was renamed in his honor. In 2013, a museum named after him was opened there, where all the awards to Cristiano are exhibited. However, Ronaldo’s popularity has reached farther than planet Earth.
A team of scientists from the University of Lisbon, led by Dr. David Sobral, discovered a galaxy in 2015 called Cosmos Redshift 7, or CR7 for short. Scientists have confirmed that this is a tribute to the famous football player.
Experts have found that in the body of Cristiano Ronaldo only 10 percent fat. It’s amazing, but even supermodels have a higher figure. Ronaldo’s height is 1.87 m, weight – 85 kg.
The University of British Columbia (Canada) decided that students should know the path of a football genius to perfection, and now they are studying a separate subject in the sociology department dedicated to the life and career of Cristiano Ronaldo. Should Ukrainian educators take it into service?
Ronaldo has often stated that he does not like to watch football, preferring boxing and MMA. Better yet, movies.
“I have many favorite films, documentaries attract me. Perhaps my favorite is The Silence of the Lambs. It’s an old film, but I really love drama,” the football player admitted.
The Portuguese has always dreamed of being a football player. However, if I had to try myself in something else, I would choose an acting career or a modeling business.
“An actor. Or maybe a model. I don’t know. But most likely an actor. I don’t know if I have a talent for it, but I always said:” If you work hard and strive hard for something, you can to achieve everything,” today’s birthday man is sure.