In soccer scoreboards news, we will give a brief biography of Cristiano Ronaldo. He was born in Funchal, Madeira, Portugal on February 5th, 1985. He has two elder sisters, Liliana Catia and Elma, as well as an elder brother, Hugo. Christiano first learned his soccer skills on Madeira Island, where he spent his early years. There he played for his local team, Nacional, and at the age of 12 he already became known as one of the best soccer players in Madeira. Not too long after he started to capture the attention of bigger Portuguese clubs, like Boavista and Porto. Eventually Ronaldo chose to play for Sporting, because it was the team he followed while he was growing up. It was not long before he was regularly appearing on the soccer scoreboards for that team.
After that Gerard Houllier – the former Liverpool manager – noticed Ronaldo and his skills when he was only sixteen. At that time, however, Liverpool did not intend to sign him, as they thought Ronald was quite young and needed to develop his skills a bit more. Then, in the summer of 2003, Ronaldo caught the attention of Sir Alex Ferguson – the Manchester United Manager – when Sporting defeated his team. Thus, Ronaldo shortly after became the first Portuguese to appear on the soccer scoreboards at Manchester United.
2006 to 2008 was a rather controversial period for Ronaldo. In the World Cup of 2006 he had to deal with certain accusations regarding his sportsmanship. He was heavily criticized when in a quarterfinal match against England he helped send Wayne Rooney off, who is his club teammate, and who at the time was playing for the English team. However, it didn’t take the fans too long to start accepting Ronaldo once again.
He won the PFA Young Player of the Year in 2007, as well as the PFA Fans’ Player of the Year, PFA Player of the Year, FWA Footballer of the Year, and Portuguese Footballer of the Year. In 2008 he took the PFA Player of the Year Award once again. In 2008, Ronaldo was also forced to deal with the controversy surrounding his transfer to Real Madrid. Currently he lives and plays in Madrid, and he says that he feels more at home there than he did in England.
Ronaldo lives with Nuno – his cousin, and Ze – his brother-in-law. He is generally a family-oriented person when he is not playing soccer. He said it was difficult for him to choose soccer as a career, as it meant spending less time with his family, especially his mother, who is apparently a major influence in his life. In his free time Ronaldo likes to cook. In an interview he mentioned that before leaving for soccer practice he usually cooks. Because of the amount of time he spends training, he rarely has time to watch television. Ronaldo is an avid learner and is always interested in new things. His pet peeves include dishonesty, smoking, and people who don’t make an effort.
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