As if going to a match at the Bernabéu Stadium to watch Real Madrid wasn’t a big enough attraction, the club has now gone and broken the world transfer record to bring Cristiano Ronaldo to La Liga.
A staggering £80m has been earmarked for Manchester United to acquire the World Player of the Year, a sum the Madrid club consider great value for money considering the player’s ability on the pitch. And, of course, the lucrative potential it generates.
Footballers, of course, always polarize opinion. Fans of one club are notoriously reluctant to praise the players of a bitter rival; preferring to promote members of their own team. I remember last season, Marca, the spokesman for Real Madrid, proclaimed for several weeks that Arjen Robben could statistically prove to be a much better player than Lionel Messi, for example.
However, few polarize opinions as much as Cristiano Ronaldo. While many are prepared to acknowledge that he is currently the best player in the world, fewer people are willing to say equally positive things about himself. This despite Sir Alex Ferguson publicly stating that he would love to see the player return to Old Trafford one day and the universal appreciation that he has spent hours on the training pitches honing his skills. Why do so many soccer fans want to criticize Ronaldo for ‘diving’ and histrionics? Let’s face it, you’re not the first player to try to score penalties when nudged in the box or throw a tantrum when substituted, right?
Born in 1985 on the beautiful island of Madeira, in Funchal, the capital city, Cristiano Ronaldo dos Santos Aveiro is the youngest of four children. It says a lot about his parents that Ronaldo earned his name from the fact that Ronald Reagan was his father’s favorite actor, apparently! Readers are invited to insert their own chimpanzee jokes at this stage. Playing amateur football from the age of eight, he then crossed over to mainland Portugal after signing for Sporting Lisbon. It was in the friendly against Manchester United that marked the refurbishment of the team’s stadium in preparation for Euro 2004, that Ronaldo first impressed Sporting’s opponents’ manager that day, Sir Alex Ferguson, who later signed the player for more. of £12. million when he was only 18 years old.
This was a huge gamble on such an inexperienced youngster, but one that paid off for Ferguson’s faith in the player’s undoubted talents. Ronaldo, initially criticized by many observers for being something of a ‘show horse’, became an impressive goalscoring and scoring phenomenon. During his time at Manchester, he helped United win the Premier League title three years in a row and also the European Champions League. He’s gone from a slightly frail-looking teenager to a strong, athletic player who, despite the attention he gets from defenders, misses few games through injury.
His seemingly incendiary behavior towards Wayne Rooney must have made life difficult for him at Old Trafford for a while, as did his pleas to leave during and after the 2008 European Championship. But never once did his enormous self-confidence waver and he soon regained the support of fans and teammates alike. And as for the opposing fans booing him, well, like many great players, Ronaldo seems to be inspired by it rather than intimidated.
Cristiano Ronaldo has nothing left to prove on the pitch. He has won everything as an individual: World Player of the Year, Ballon d’Or, PFA Player of the Year, etc, etc. And although the Portuguese team he now captains is going through a relatively difficult time, his impact on the teams he represents is always second to none.
He only has to play in the club that he supported as a child and for which his mother Dolores clearly wanted him to sign. Real Madrid and Cristiano Ronaldo are obviously made for each other: he looks very comfortable in the white stripe and the packed stadium that greeted his public unveiling showed how much the Madrid public longed for his signing. Now we have to find out if he can have the same impact on Madrid’s fortunes as he did on Manchester United’s. It may be a bit more difficult, but it will be fun to watch.