Cristiano Ronaldo (born February 5, 1985, Funchal, Madeira, Portugal) is a Portuguese football striker considered one of the greatest players of his generation. Ronaldo has won five Ballon d’Or awards (2008, 2013, 2014, 2016, and 2017), and in 2024 he became the first men’s player to score 900 goals in official matches.

Early life and career

Ronaldo’s father, José Denis Aveiro, was an equipment manager at the local club Andorra. (Ronaldo was added to Cristiano’s name in honor of his father’s favorite film actor, Ronald Reagan, who was President of the United States at the time of Cristiano’s birth.) At age 15, Ronaldo was diagnosed with a heart condition that required surgery, but was sidelined for only a short period and made a full recovery. He first played for Clube Desportivo Nacional in Madeira and then moved to Sporting Clube de Portugal (known as Sporting Lisbon), where he played for the club’s various youth teams before joining the Sporting first team in 2002.
Ronaldo was a formidable athlete on the pitch, a tall player at 6 feet 1 inch (1.85 meters). Originally a right winger, he became a striker with a fluid attacking style. He was able to dazzle opponents with his agility of foot, which created enough space for openings in the opposition defence.

Club play

After a successful season with Sporting that brought the youngster to the attention of Europe’s biggest football clubs, Ronaldo signed with English club Manchester United in 2003. He was an instant sensation and soon became one of the best strikers in the game. His best season for United came in the 2007–08 season when he scored 42 league and cup goals and won the Golden Boot award as Europe’s top scorer with 31 league goals. After helping United win the Champions League in May 2008, Ronaldo won the FIFA Player of the Year award for his outstanding 2007–08 season. He also led United to the 2009 Champions League final, which they lost to Barcelona.

Shortly after, Ronaldo was sold to Spain’s Real Madrid – the club he wanted to play for – for a record transfer fee of £80 million (about $131 million). His scoring prowess continued with his new team, and he scored the most goals (40) in La Liga history during the 2010–11 season (his record was broken in the following by his rival Lionel Messi of Barcelona).In the 2011–12 season, Ronaldo helped Real Madrid win the Spanish league championship and scored a personal best 46 goals during the league season. He scored a total of 66 goals in 56 appearances for Real Madrid and the Portuguese national team in 2013 and was awarded the FIFA World Player of the Year award for the second time (the FIFA World Player of the Year Award was renamed the FIFA Ballon d’Or in 2010).

In 2014, he scored 52 goals in 43 matches and led Real Madrid to the Champions League title, earning Ronaldo another Ballon d’Or award. In the 2014–15 season, he led La Liga’s top scorers with 48 goals. Ronaldo scored his 324th goal as a member of Real Madrid in October 2015, becoming the club’s top scorer. He scored 35 La Liga goals in 2015–16 and helped Real win its record 11th Champions League title, and in December 2016 he won a fourth career Ballon d’Or for his accomplishments. Ronaldo scored 42 goals in all competitions for Real Madrid in the 2016–17 season and led his team to the Spanish league and Champions League titles that season, earning him the fifth Ballon d’Or award of his career. In the 2017–18 season, he scored 44 goals in 44 matches, as Real won their third consecutive Champions League title.

In July 2018, he signed a four-year contract with Italian team Juventus worth €112 million (about $132 million). He finished his real career scoring 311 goals in 292 matches. He scored 28 goals in his first season with Juventus, the lowest number of domestic goals since his final season with Manchester United in the 2019–20 season, Ronaldo helped the club to another league title, and Juventus later won the 2020 Italian Super Cup and the 2021 Coppa Italia Final.

Several months after the last match, he left Juventus and returned to Manchester United. But his second spell with the club was disappointing. Both Ronaldo and Manchester United struggled, and he expressed his growing dissatisfaction with the club. Their contract was terminated in November 2022 by “mutual agreement”. The following month, Ronaldo signed a contract with Al-Nassr Saudi Club.

International career

On home soil, after progressing through the youth and under-21 ranks, Ronaldo made his debut for the Portugal national team against Kazakhstan in August 2003 (four days after his debut for United). He was a key player in Portugal’s fourth-place finish at the 2006 World Cup and became full-time captain of the national team in 2008. In 2012, his impressive performances took Portugal to the semi-finals of the European Championship, where his team was eliminated by rivals Spain in a match decided by Spain a penalty kick shoot-out. Ronaldo exited after winning his second FIFA World Player of the Year award at the 2014 World Cup, but his performance in the tournament was outstanding, and Portugal’s team struggled during a group-stage elimination.

In 2016, Ronaldo helped Portugal win the European Championship, the country’s first major international title, although he missed the finals due to a knee injury he had sustained early in the match. Ronaldo had an impressive performance at the 2018 World Cup, scoring four goals in four matches as Portugal reached the knockout stages but lost their first match stage to a strong defensive Uruguay side.

Four years later, Ronaldo became the first player to score in five different World Cup editions. However, he was not part of the starting lineup for several matches, and Portugal’s 2022 World Cup ended in a quarter-final defeat. In a group match against Croatia in the 2024 UEFA Nations League, Ronaldo scored his 90th goal for Croatia, becoming the first player to achieve this feat.

Endorsements and legal issues

Ronaldo was one of the most popular sports stars off the field, and numerous studies on player popularity show that he was the most popular player in the world during his peak. His immense popularity has made Ronaldo one of the highest-paid endorsers in the history of sports, and in November 2016 he became only the third person (after basketball stars Michael Jordan and LeBron James) to receive a “lifetime” contract from sporting goods company Nike. In addition, he founded the successful “CR7” brand for his products which included shoes, underwear, and perfumes.

At the heart of the legal case that arose in June 2017 was Ronaldo’s rampant marketing. In the same month, prosecutors filed a lawsuit accusing Ronaldo of defrauding the Spanish government of 14.7 million euros ($16.5 million) by concealing income from his image rights in Spain from 2011 to 2014. He was accused of underestimating the value of the income resulting from the sale and licensing of his image rights and the accompanying tax obligations, but Ronaldo denied all these accusations. However, in June 2018 he accepted a two-year suspended prison sentence and agreed to pay €18.8 million ($21.8 million) to the Spanish government to settle the case.

Real Madrid

Real Madrid, is a Spanish professional football (soccer) club based in Madrid. Real Madrid is known for its all-white uniform, which has led to its nickname “Los Blancos”, and is one of the most famous teams in the world.

Real Madrid Football Club grew out of Sky, a team founded in Madrid in 1897. The club was officially founded in 1902 and joined the Royal Spanish Football Association in 1909. Real Madrid played in various stadiums until the club’s president, Santiago Bernabeu, led the construction of the stadium that bears his name. Opened in 1947, the Bernabéu has a capacity of more than 80,000 fans and was the venue for the 1982 FIFA World Cup Final.

The European Cup was held for the first time during the 1955–56 season, with a prestigious squad made up of clubs that had won their country’s league championship. Real Madrid was the first winner of the tournament, after defeating the French club Stade Reims in the final. This continued European dominance that has not been matched by any team since. Talented players such as Ferenc Puskas, Alfredo Di Stéfano, Paco Gento, Hector Real, and Miguel Muse helped the club win its first five European Cups in a row.

The club’s performance in the 1960 European Cup Final against West German side Eintracht Frankfurt – an effective 7–3 win – is widely considered one of the club’s best-ever performances. Real Madrid has won a total of 15 European Cup/Champions League titles, more than any other team.

Real Madrid has won more La Liga titles (36) than any other Spanish team. The club has also won the Copa del Rey, the main competition for the Spanish Cup, 20 times and the Spanish Super Cup (Spanish Super Cup) 13 times. It won the UEFA Cup twice, in 1985 and 1986.

Real’s local rival is Atletico Madrid, but the club’s biggest rival is FC Barcelona. Tensions between the football clubs in Spain’s two largest cities were exacerbated by the teams’ struggle in the 1950s to sign Di Stéfano, who rejected a proposed deal with Barcelona to sign for Madrid, helping Real Madrid become a football powerhouse in the 1950s and 1960s. Matches between Barcelona and Real Madrid are known as El Clásico (“The Classic”) and are watched across Spain largely because the two sides symbolize the ongoing political and cultural tensions between Castilian (Real Madrid) and Catalan (Barcelona) Spain.

Since the late 1990s, Real Madrid has spent a lot of money attracting some of the world’s most famous foreign players to the club, where they are known as galácticos (“stars”). These players were often the most expensive footballers (in terms of transfer fees) in the world and included stars such as David Beckham, Luis Figo, Ronaldo, Zinedine Zidane, Kaka, Cristiano Ronaldo and others and James Rodriguez. Sergio Ramos and Iker Casilla are two other notable players of this era. After parting ways with Paris Saint-Germain after the 2023-24 season, Kylian Mbappé joined Real Madrid.

Manchester United

Manchester United, an English professional football team based in Manchester, England. Nicknamed the “Red Devils” because of their distinctive red shirts, they are one of the richest and most supported football clubs not only in England, but in the entire world. The club has won the Premier League Championship a record 20 times and the FA Cup 12 times.

The club was formed in 1878 by workers of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway as Newton Heath LYR. Renamed Manchester United in 1902, the club won its first English Premier League Championship in the 1907–08 season. In 1910, the club moved from its old home ground on Bank Street to Old Trafford, which has served as the team’s home ground ever since.

Manchester United’s history has been dominated by two long-serving managers since the Second World War. Sir Matthew Busby was appointed manager of the team in 1945 and led the club to five Premier League victories and two FA Cup victories over the next 24 years. The club suffered tragedy in 1958 when a plane carrying the team crashed in Munich, killing 23 of the 44 on board Busby rebuilt the team in the 1960s, and included the talented attacking trio of Bobby Charlton, George Best and Denis Law. In 1968, the team became the first English team to win the European Cup (now called the Champions League) with a 4-1 victory over Benfica of Portugal in the final.

Former Aberdeen Scottish coach Alex Ferguson managed the club from 1986 to 2013 and oversaw an unprecedented period of dominance in the Premier League. Manchester United have won 12 Premier League titles since the league’s inaugural season in 1992–93. In the 1998-99 season the club won the Premier League, FA Cup and Champions League to achieve the first ‘treble’ in the history of English football. The second Champions League win came in the 2007–08 season. Significantly, the club missed out on another potential title on the final day of the 2011-12 season, when Manchester City, the second-best team in the Premier League, clinched the league title on points difference. Two Premier League clubs have raised the city’s profile around the world.

Manchester United is best known for its youth team programme, which has produced a number of notable home-grown players who have gone on to become the club’s first team squad. Performed by, including David Beckham. The club has also made some big signings over the years, such as Wayne Rooney, Rio Ferdinand, Andy Cole, Roy Keane, Eric Cantona, Patrice Evra, Dimitar Berbatov, and Cristiano Ronaldo.