SPORTGLOBE

Cristiano Ronaldo dos Santos Aveiro GOIH ComM is a Portuguese professional footballer who plays as a forward for and captains both Saudi Professional League club Al Nassr and the Portugal national team.

Born: 5 February 1985 (age 38 years), Hospital Dr. Nélio Mendonça, Funchal, Portugal

Children: Cristiano Ronaldo Jr., Bella Esmeralda dos Santos Aveiro, more

Current teams: Portugal national football team (#7 / Forward), Al-Nassr FC (#7 / Forward)

Career start: 1992

Height: 1.87 m

Salary: 62 million GBP (2023)

Partner: Georgina Rodríguez (2016–)

Over the course of his career, Portuguese footballerCristiano Ronaldo has received five Ballon d’Or/FIFA Ballon d’Or awards,^[a] the most for a European player. Widely regarded as one of the greatest players of all time,^[1][2][b] Ronaldo holds the record for most goals and assists in the UEFA Champions League (140 and 42 respectively), and the record for most goals in the UEFA European Championship (14), its qualification stage (31), and the FIFA Club World Cup (7), as well as most goals scored in a UEFA Champions League season (17), most international goals (118), and most appearances in a European national team (196). He has scored a record 819 senior career goals for club and country. Moreover, he is one of the few recorded players to have made over 1,100 professional career appearances.

Collectively, Ronaldo has won 34 senior trophies in his career. He has also attained one title from youth and at least five titles from friendly competitions. All in all he had won over 300 trophies and medals by January 2021, with some of them dating back to his childhood.

Ronaldo began his senior career with Sporting CP, before signing with Manchester United in 2003, winning the FA Cup in his first season. He would also go on to win three consecutive Premier League titles, the Champions League and the FIFA Club World Cup; at age 23, he won his first Ballon d’Or. Ronaldo was the subject of the then-most expensive association football transfer when he signed for Real Madrid in 2009 in a transfer worth €94 million (£80 million). He became a key contributor and formed an attacking trio with Karim Benzema and Gareth Bale which was integral to the team winning four Champions League wins from 2014 to 2018, including La Décima. During this period, he won back-to-back Ballons d’Or in 2013 and 2014, and again in 2016 and 2017, and was runner-up three times behind Lionel Messi, his perceived career rival. He also became the club’s all-time top goalscorer and the all-time top scorer in the Champions League, and finished as the competition’s top scorer for six consecutive seasons between 2012 and 2018. With Real, Ronaldo won two La Liga titles, two Copa del Rey, four Champions Leagues, three UEFA Super Cup and three Club World Cups. In 2018, he signed for Juventus in a transfer worth an initial €100 million (£88 million), the most expensive transfer for an Italian club and for a player over 30 years old. He won two Serie A titles, two Supercoppa Italiana trophies and a Coppa Italia, became the inaugural Serie A Most Valuable Player and the first footballer to finish as top scorer in the English, Spanish and Italian leagues, before returning to Manchester United in 2021. He left in 2022, after his contract with the club was terminated. In 2023, Ronaldo signed for Al Nassr.

Ronaldo made his international debut for Portugal in 2003 at the age of 18 and has since earned over 190 caps, making him Portugal’s most-capped player. With more than 100 goals at international level, he is also the all-time top goalscorer. Ronaldo has played in and scored at 11 major tournaments; he scored his first international goal at Euro 2004, where he helped Portugal reach the final. He assumed captaincy of the national team in July 2008. In 2015, Ronaldo was named the best Portuguese player of all time by the Portuguese Football Federation. The following year, he led Portugal to their first major tournament title at Euro 2016, and received the Silver Boot as the second-highest goalscorer of the tournament. This achievement would see him receive his fourth Ballon d’Or. He also led them to a third-place finish at the 2017 FIFA Confederations Cup, to victory in the inaugural UEFA Nations League in 2019, receiving the top scorer awardin the finals, and later received the Golden Boot as top scorer of Euro 2020.

One of the world’s most marketable and famous athletes, Ronaldo was ranked the world’s highest-paid athlete by Forbes in 2016 and 2017 and the world’s most famous athlete by ESPN from 2016 to 2019. Timeincluded him on their list of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2014. He is the first footballer and the third sportsman to earn US$1 billion in his career.

Player stats

A versatile attacker, Ronaldo is capable of playing on either wing as well as through the centre of the pitch,^[442] and, while ostensibly right-footed, is very strong with both feet.^[443] Tactically, Ronaldo has undergone several evolutions throughout his career. While at Sporting and during his first season at Manchester United, he was typically deployed as a traditional winger on the right side of midfield, where he regularly looked to deliver crosses into the penalty area. In this position, he was able to use his pace and acceleration, agility and technical skills to take on opponents in one-on-one situations. Ronaldo became noted for his dribbling and flair, often displaying an array of tricksand feints,^[444][445] such as the step overs and so-called ‘chops’ that became his trademark;^[446] he has also been known to use the flip-flap.^[447]