Cristiano Ronaldo was named after Ronald Reagan and survived teenage heart surgery
His father, a municipal gardener in Madeira, admired Ronald Reagan and named his youngest son after the American president. Around fifteen the boy was diagnosed with tachycardia, a racing heart that threatened his career. Surgeons used a laser to cauterise the faulty pathways, he left hospital hours later, and he was back training within days.
Funchal, Madeira's capital, is where he arrived on 5 February 1985; he grew up poor, sharing a room with his three siblings. His mother cooked and cleaned for a living; his father, a veteran of Portugal's colonial war in Angola, doubled as kit man for the local club Andorinha, where Ronaldo started playing at seven. At twelve he passed a three-day trial with Sporting in Lisbon, which paid just 1,500 pounds to take him on. Homesick and struggling at school, he was expelled for throwing a chair at a teacher, and at fourteen he agreed with his mother to quit education after sixth grade and concentrate on football.
Sporting gave him his first-team debut at seventeen in 2002. A year later, in a friendly, he tormented Manchester United so badly in a 3 to 1 win that Alex Ferguson signed him within a week for 12 million pounds, an English record for a teenager. He asked for his old number 28 and was instead handed the number 7 once worn by George Best, Eric Cantona and David Beckham. Best called his debut the most exciting he had ever seen.
The early years were bumpy, with teammates irritated by his showboating and a 2006 World Cup clash involving Wayne Rooney that left him booed around England. He answered with goals. In 2007 to 2008 he scored 31 league goals, took the European Golden Shoe as the first winger ever to do so, scored in United's Champions League final win over Chelsea, and at 23 won his first Ballon d'Or, United's first since Best in 1968.
Moves to Real Madrid in 2009 for a then-record fee, to Juventus in 2018, back to United and then to Al-Nassr in 2023 followed. He has won five Ballon d'Or awards, five Champions League titles and Euro 2016 as Portugal's captain, and has scored more men's international goals and won more caps than anyone.
Source: Cristiano Ronaldo
