He just made World Cup history. Here's the man behind the myth.
Cristiano Ronaldo scored twice Tuesday night as Portugal crushed Uzbekistan 5-0, becoming the first player ever to score in six World Cup tournaments. You know the records. You know the celebrations. Here's what you probably don't know.
1. His mother tried to abort him. In her memoir "Mother Courage," Ronaldo's mother Dolores Aveiro reveals that she considered terminating her pregnancy with Cristiano, overwhelmed by poverty and her husband's severe alcoholism. The boy she almost didn't have became the most followed person on the planet.
2. He was named after Ronald Reagan. Ronaldo was named after the American actor and president, whom his father was a fan of. The full name is Cristiano Ronaldo dos Santos Aveiro. The Reagan part stuck.
3. A heart condition almost ended everything at 15. At 15, Ronaldo was diagnosed with tachycardia, a condition where his resting heart rate was dangerously fast, and underwent surgery to correct it. His mother recalled: "They used a sort of laser to cauterise the source of the problem. He was operated on in the morning and came out at the end of the afternoon." He was back training within days.
4. He never finished sixth grade. Despite moving to Lisbon to join Sporting CP's youth academy, Ronaldo did not complete his schooling beyond the 6th grade. He was also expelled from school after throwing a chair at a teacher he felt had disrespected him.
5. He was mocked for his accent. When Ronaldo arrived in Lisbon from Madeira at age 12, he was hundreds of miles from home, surrounded by strangers, and was mocked by other kids for his strong Madeiran accent. He cried frequently during those early months and even considered going back home. He did not go home.
6. He doesn't sleep like anyone else. Ronaldo restructured his entire life around performance, including a sleep schedule broken into five 90-minute naps rather than one continuous block, and a complete refusal to drink alcohol, a choice he has connected to watching his father's alcoholism slowly take his life.
7. Sir Alex Ferguson refused to leave Portugal without him. It was his performance during an exhibition match to mark the unveiling of Sporting's new stadium that convinced Sir Alex Ferguson to break the bank and bring the teenager to Old Trafford. Several United players reportedly went to Ferguson after the match and begged him to sign the kid who had just run rings around them.
8. His vertical leap beats most NBA players. Ronaldo's vertical leap has been measured at around 78 centimeters, roughly 30 inches, which puts him above the average for professional basketball players in the NBA. It explains, among other things, his heading ability despite not being a particularly tall forward.
9. You land at his airport when you fly to Madeira. In 2016, Madeira International Airport was renamed Cristiano Ronaldo International Airport following Portugal's triumph at Euro 2016. There is also a CR7 museum, a CR7 hotel, and a bronze statue. The island's economy has, at this point, essentially been Ronaldofied.
10. He was the first athlete in any team sport to earn $1 billion. According to Forbes, in 2020 Ronaldo became the first active team-sport athlete to surpass $1 billion in career earnings, a number that has only grown since. The boy who sometimes went to bed hungry in Madeira built an empire. And Tuesday night in Houston, at 41, he was still adding to it.
