Cristiano Ronaldo and his life

Cristiano, who grew up in the working-class district of Santo António, three miles inland and a world away from the grand hotels that adorn the rocky coast, has only been back to the island on holiday. Only the more inquisitive tourists venture to the area.

His childhood home is perched on a hill overlooking a main road that winds through the island’s hilly interior. The back wall of the now deserted house is crumbling. The wooden slats that serve as windows, have holes in them and the corrugated iron roofs needs attention. It is typical of the other properties in the ‘bairro’ and worth less than £5,000.

Four brothers and sisters – Cristiano, Hugo, Elma and Katia – shared the humble abode with parents José Dinis and Maria Dolores. Cristiano first began kicking a ball on the patio when he was two or three. By the time he started at the local primary school in 1997, when he was six, his passion for the game was obvious.

Maria dos Santos, a teacher at the Escola Sao Joao, vividly remembers the distinguishing Characteristics of pupil number 587: “From the day he walked through the door, football was his preferred sport. He took part in other activities, learnt songs and did his work, but he liked to have time for himself, time for football.”

“If there wasn’t a real ball around – and often there wasn’t – he would make one out of socks.

He would always find a way of playing football in the playground. I don’t know how he managed it.”

The mere mention of the former pupil’s name at the school these days send the kids into noisy delirium. They are excited to see a recent copy of United Magazine and hurriedly leaf through the pages to find a picture of their idol. “Look, it’s Cristiano Ronaldo,” announces one. “Cristiano Ronaldo!”

Unsurprisingly, Cristiano’s popularity has soared following his stellar performances on home soil at Euro 2004, where Portugal finished runners-up to Greece. He may have been able to walk around untroubled during the Sporting years, but not any more. Cristiano is now the closest thing Madeira has to a pop star and when he returns for a short holiday after the European Championship, he decides it would be more convenient to fend off journalists at a hotel in Funchal rather than the new family home. He is also to be spotted handing out presents to poor children at charity events and featuring in a photo shoot with Miss Portugal for the best-selling local newspaper, Diario de Noticias.

“All the kids wore a shirt with his name on it during the tournament,” Maria says.

“They know Cristiano went to school here and think of nothing else. They want to be the next Ronaldo. It would be fantastic if he came back to visit them one day.”

 

Young Ronaldo

Cristiano studied at Sao Joao at the same time as he played for Andorinha, his first club where dad Jose was the kit man. He was officially on the books of the amateur team between 1993 and 1995, from the ages of 8 to 10, but had started training with the side before that.

The club youth director Alvaro Milho remembers going to fetch Ronaldo in his car from the camshackle house on the hill. Sometimes I would find him asleep and have to wake him up,” he smiles. “So when I saw him play at Euro 2004, the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end.”

Understandably, Andorinha officials are delighted to have been put on the map by the club’s former charge. The team were without a regular during Ronaldo’s era but now president Rui Santos enjoys an office to himself and the club boasts a full-size, all-weather astroturf pitch.

A footballer like Ronaldo does not surface every day,” Santos says.

“The first time I saw him, I knew he was out of the ordinary – he was more developed than the other players, different. But nobody ever thought he would achieve so much so soon.”

For Santos, the tears that Cristiano shed after the final of Euro 2004 had a special poignancy. Crying was something of a trait with the boy Ronaldo and Santos had seen a similarly emotional response many times before. He remembers when Andorinha were facing Camacha, then the best team on the island, in the 1993/4 regional youth championship. Andorinha were 2-0 down at the break and Ronaldo was so upset that he sobbed at half-time. After the interval he inspired the side to victory, scoring one and making another in a memorable 3-2 win.

 

Ronaldo in tears

“Even then, he didn’t like to lose,” Santos says. “His will is to win. He’s pure spirit. He always used to cry when he lost. It wasn’t unusual.”

In Spain, the story of Jesus Gil allowing Raul, whose first club was Atletico Madrid, to slip through his fingers and sign for bitter rivals Real because he refused to pay for his bus pass is now legendary. A similar anecdote about Cristiano does the rounds in Madeira.

By 1995, word had spread that Ronaldo was an outstanding talent and the island’s top teams – Maritimo and Nacional – both declared an interest. In theory, Maritimo – the bigger side – should have snapped him up but events took a different course. The Maritimo youth boss at the time allegedly failed to turn up for a crucial meeting with Santos because his board refused to pay for the two sets of kit Andorinha wanted in return for Cristiano, who duly joined Nacional.

Fernao Sousa, Cristiano’s godfather and the man who DeFreitas says “deserves the credit for discovering Ronaldo”, disputes this. Sousa played for Nacional himself and argues that Ronaldo’s move to Nacional was always on the cards because of ‘family ties’. Current Maritimo president, Carlos Pereira, who now advises Cristiano on financial matters but also remembers his unrivalled skill for keeping tin cans in the air with his feet, maintains that the story is true. He reckons his club really did not want to pay for the kit – but stresses that the move worked out in Ronaldo’s best interest anyway.

“If we analyse it today it was a mistake as he was better than the other boys,” says Pereira. “Maritimo would not have let him go to Sporting as early as Nacional did; we hold on to out talent for longer. And from Sporting, he went to Manchester United. If he had stayed, he might not have the same opportunities.

Whatever the case, Cristiano came into his own in his one and only season in the black-and-white stripes of Nacional, captaining the side to the Under-12 regional youth championship for the first time in the club’s history and confirming Fernao’s opinion that Ronaldo was good enough to become a professional footballer.

Cristiano’s father certainly has fond recollections of those days. It was the last year he spent with his son before his boy, who everybody always told him was going to be special, went to Lisbon to begin a new chapter in his life.

 

Playing for Nacional da Madeira

“I watched every single one of his matches at Nacional,” Jose says.

“They are most treasured memories. Each time he played away, I had a place reserved for me on the bus or the plane. When the team lifted the title that year I remember drinking champagne with the directors at the Choupana [Nacional’s Stadium]. It was unforgettable.

“We speak on the phone but because of the way his career has gone, I have not spent so much time with him. But Madeira gave him his childhood, his family and friends. People like Marques de Freitas , his teachers at the school, the coaches at Andorinha and Nacional…”

“From there he has moved on. He cried like the rest of us when Portugal lost the final of the European Championship, but he will play more games with the national team and it was a good experience for him. He was angry to lose something that he shouldn’t have lost. That’s why he cried. It was the shock of it and the end of a dream. But he was still one of the best players on the pitch.”

After the title-winning campaign at Nacional, Fernao contacted De Freitas who arranged a three-day trial at Sporting. The Lisbon club know potential when they see it and agreed to pay off cash-strapped Nacional’s debts in exchange for the younger. Whereas Cristiano was able to express himself on the pitch at his new club, it was a different matter off it. In an unfamiliar environment, and a long way from his loved ones, he became homesick and struggled to adapt to his new surroundings.

At Sao Joao, Ronaldo had been “well-behaved, fun and a good friend to his classmates,” according to Maria Dos Santos, but there are no such glowing descriptions offered at the Escola Barreiros in Lisbon. Cristiano’s heavy Portuguese accent set him apart from the other lads, who would tease him. On one occasion he even launched a chair at a teacher for a perceived slur on his Madeira heritage. “He does not have the accent any more when he is away from Madeira,” sister Katia says. “But it soon comes back again when he returns.”

Agostinho Silva, the deputy editor of Diario de Noticias, picks up the story: “Sporting specially asked for Ronaldo’s mother to go to Lisbon to be with him because they saw he needed support. Being goaded because of his pronunciation was a big shock. We heard stories from Lisbon that he turned into a bad boy but we didn’t know for sure what was going on. He’s calmed down now, but those were difficult times.”

Agostinho also explains how much Cristiano’s achievements have meant for his island. “The success he has had is much more important than it would have been in other areas of the country because of the social status here. Madeira has traditionally had an inferiority complex in relation to Lisbon. Lisbon has the political power but Madeira now has a player who is a key part of the national side and that’s a big feather in our cap.

“It ‘s much more important than football. He’s a phenomenon. It’s extraordinary. We’re quite a reserved people, but during Euro 2004 there were parties here everyday.

Cristiano was a fundamental piece of the team and he’s already at the biggest club in the world.”

De Freitas, who is also the Portuguese government’s Attorney General on Madeira, admits that at Sporting there were “some embarrassments”, but the arrival of Maria Dolores, who now lives in Manchester with Cristiano, Katia and Hugo. And he believes the 19-year-old winger’s determination that saw him surpass expectations to become one of United’s most important players last term was forged by adversity. “At 18, he already had the personality of an adult,” he says. “Now he is mature beyond his years. The difficulties he went through helped to form a player with great deal of resilience. They created his temperament and created a unique person. He is also hungry and football is his life, his passion, his pleasure.”

Of equal importance is that Sporting was the best place for Cristiano to develop his talent. De Freitas explains that the club’s academy – the Alocochete – is a veritable “football factory”, and the player received first-class instruction at the state-of-the-art institution, which is located on the southern outskirts of Lisbon, near the River Tagus, for a full seven years.

Former Nwcastle midfielder Hugo Viana, Porto’s Ricardo Quaresma and Nuno Valente, Fulham midfielder Luis Boa Morte, Benfica’s Miguel and Simao Sabrosa, and Real Madrid star Luís Figo were all groomed at the famed ‘Academia de Futebol.’ Every one of them was a member of Portugal’s Euro 2004 squad.

 

Playing for Sporting Lisbon

The academia’s overriding aim is to turn gifted youngsters into footballers who can cope with the demands of the modern game both on and off the pitch – and there is no greater example of the effectiveness of their methods than Cristiano. He is a textbook case study in the evolution of young talent. Assigned special tutors to help him in his school work, and child psychologists to guide him through adolescence, doctors also monitored every aspect of his physical transformation from boy to man.

“At Sporting he was given special treatment,” De Freitas says. “ Cristiano is the product of a laboratory in the sense that he is the fruition of what is essentially a scientific process. Not many clubs use science the way Sporting do. For example, a study was done of the density of Ronaldo’s bones to see what sort of rate he was going to have.

“The doctors wanted to know how tall he was going to be as it is important for tall players not to play an excessive amount of football when they’re young. There were times when he was kept out of the team as a result of the tests. The analysis predicted he would be six foot two inches (189cm) tall and he’s not far off that now.”

Cristiano was preened in the rarefied confines of the Alcochete for six years before he played the first full 90 minutes of Portuguese Superliga football at the Alvalade in October 2002. Seventeen is assumed to be a young age to make a debut but he was ready by the time he set foot on the pitch.

At that point, only the Sporting youth coaches were aware of his capabilities, but the player announced his arrival on the senior stage spectacularly (in much the same way as he did for United against Bolton a year later, striking twice in a 3-0 defeat of Moreirense

“One of those goals was the best one he has scored,” De Freitas recalls.

 

Young Ronaldo terrorising defenders

“From midfield, he took the ball past three players and slotted it away. His mother watching in the stands and she almost fainted!”

Former Sporting coach Laszlo Boloni used the prodigy sparingly for the rest of the 2002/03 campaign, restricting him largely to a substitute role and allowing him only a further 10 full appearances. Despite the limited opportunities, Cristiano made a big impression and work of his special ability spread beyond the Alcochete.

With uncanny things, Manchester United signed a ‘development partnership with Sporting in May 2003, the month before the Portuguese campaign finished. And by another happy coincidence, one of the club’s most illustrious former coaches, Carlo Queoroz, was in his first spell as Sir Alex’s right-hand man.

Queiroz would have had the chapter and verse on the player and Ferguson was poised for a transfer coup. Three months later, Sporting faced United in the friendly to celebrate the inauguration of the new Alvalade stadium and the gaffer had a chance to see the player for himself. Cristiano seized the moment, conjuring one of his virtuoso displays in a 3-1 triumph.

De Freitas witnessed what proved to be the player’s last performance for Sporting from a seat by the tunnel: “I was in the stand and he was coming out at half-time. I Shouted “Cristiano’ when he passed below me. He looked up, grinned and gave me a big thumbs-up. A few days later, he was at United.”

Only Cristiano was prepared for the speed at which the £12.2m deal went through and the attention it generated. “When the rumors that he was going to Manchester started we didn’t know if they were true,” Katia says. “Then everything happened very quickly and the common kicked off in a big way during his first week in Manchester. He was on the front pages of the newspapers, on the TV. It was mad.

We couldn’t believe it, but Cristiano was calm because practically all his life people have talked about him.”

Everyone who is qualified to comment agrees that United is the ideal club for Ronaldo. The plan was for him to stay at Sporting for another season and then move to a big side. A raft of his peers who ventured outside Portugal – Quaresma and Simao (Barcelona), Heldr Postiga (Tottenham), Hugo spells abroad, yet Cristiano is settled in Manchester.

 

Ronaldo signs for United

Agostinho, the deputy editor of the local newspaper, cites a trip to England he made at the end of last season as an example of why Cristiano is in good hands at Old Trafford. He was due to meet the player at the O Farol restaurant in London to raise funds for children in Madeira, but United had just drawn 1-1 at home against Chelsea in the penultimate match of the season. The result meant the club missed out on second position in the league and were forced into the Champions League qualifying rounds. Sir Alex Ferguson called off all pre-arranged Media engagements so the players would focus on the FA Cup Final.

“It was a disappointment for me, but probably the best for him,” Agostinho said. “Ferguson seems to be a disciplinarian and very demanding, but the policy works well. If Cristiano had gone to any other club he would be back in Portugal by now. United are a model side in terms of organization.”

De Freitas agrees that United have provided Cristiano with the perfect platform to fulfill his promise: “Sporting couldn’t refuse the kind of money offered last year, but United was the best club in the world he could have gone to. Real Madrid hardly give youth a chance and Barcelona take on young players but lack patience. The move has worked out well and United are not about to let Cristiano go anywhere now.

There isn’t a better young player than him in the world, not in South American, not anywhere. His ability is frightening and in the big games it looks like he’s enjoying himself rather than burdened by responsibility. He needs to score a few more goals, true, but the commentators in England will be jumping off their seats a lot more this season. Providing he continues to develop at the same rate, avoid injury and bad influences, he could be the best player in the world in three years time.”

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