Billionaire Ronaldo: Celebrating Football’s stratospheric superstar

Cristiano Ronaldo thinks he is the best footballer on the planet, if not the greatest ever. It is a debatable stand, at least considering that his bête noire, Lionel Messi has a similar claim to the throne in the eyes of many. One thing is not debatable however, and it is the fact that Ronaldo is the biggest superstar in world football. Actually, it isn’t much of a stretch to say he is the biggest sports star today.

This fact was amply echoed last week when Forbes announced that Ronaldo, 35, had become football’s first billionaire. According to the publication, the Juventus superstar raked in $105m last year to take him sprinting past the billion-dollar mark in career earnings. He joins 15-time golf major winner Tiger Woods and retired boxing superstar Floyd Mayweather Jr in an exclusive club of sports star to tip the 10-figure mark.

It is another unique feather in the well decorated cap of the Portuguese who has been both unrelenting and inspiring in his pursuit of excellence. The feat is even more remarkable considering that barely two decades ago, a teenage Ronaldo, in the company of his now late father, Jose Dinis Aveiro, walked the streets of his native Island of Madeira in search of a football club for him.

Spurred on by the unwavering belief of his father, the dire situation of his family and enormous belief in his God-given talent, the scrawny little boy from Funchal is now the brightest star for millions around the word to gaze on. There’s a certain sentimental appeal in every rags to riches story, but Ronaldo’s stands out for being a ringing testament to the fact that a man’s station in life is only limited by his imagination.

“I’m living a dream I never want to wake up from”, he said in a recent interview. And it still feels like yesterday when it all began to take shape.

Manchester United, as had been the trend over a couple seasons, appeared to have run into a cul-de-sac against bogey side Bolton Wanderers. The Red Devils had a fragile 1-0 lead, and Sam Allardyce’s Trotters were causing all sorts of problems for the hosts and the 67,647 fans packed at Old Trafford. Sir Alex Ferguson decided to play his hand on the hour mark after Kevin Nolan and Kevin Davies spurned big chances to at least draw the visitors level.

In comes a lanky, gum-chewing teenager with blonde streaks in his black hair. He was wearing the iconic no 7 shirt vacated by David Beckham when he left that summer to join Real Madrid. He turned the game around as casually as he stepped on the pitch – teasing and taunting, surging past defenders and setting up teammates as United ran out 4-0 winners. The legendary Ryan Giggs bagged a brace, but there was only one story on everyone’s lips – Ronaldo’s 30-minute cameo. Even Fergie could not be blasé, as he declared afterward that the Red Devils had “a new hero”.

The choppy waters of the Premier League had drowned a number of youngsters, and even more established professionals down the years. But this lean and mean Portuguese was not about to become just another statistic. He conquered, with some to spare. By the time he left to join Real Madrid in a then record £80m in 2009, he had won three league titles, an FA Cup, two league cups, the Champions League, World Club Cup, a ballon d’Or, Fifa Player of the Year among a host of individual awards.

Ronaldo’s stunning strike earned him his second Fifa Puskas Award

He came with a duffel bag full of gongs to the Bernabeu where he was the leading act in a new Galacticos era. The memo for the new Galacticos was straightforward – to topple high-flying archrivals Barcelona. For Ronaldo however, that was merely the necessary condition for success. Sufficiently, he had to take centre stage in an all-star cast that included former ballon d’Or winner Kaka, Karim Benzema, Xabi Alonso, Gonzalo Higuain amongst others. It was a different plot to the one at United, and further removed from his early days at Sporting Lisbon. For a man addicted to winning however, his story was not about to change. He not only eclipsed the other stars, he surpassed all expectations at the Spanish capital.

At the end of his nine-year stay at the club, Ronaldo emerged the record goalscorer with an insane 450 goals in 438 appearances, winning four Champions League titles and the same number of ballons d’Or.

It was a spell of jaw-dropping highlight reel, spiced by his supreme rivalry with Barca’s Messi. Arguably, his most spectacular moment was the obscene overhead kick as Madrid beat Juventus 3-0 in the last eight of the Champions League in 2018. A flying Ronaldo acrobatically converted Dani Carvajal’s cross to leave Gianluigi Buffon rooted to the spot, even as the home fans applauded a moment of sheer genius. Social media went up in flames.

He would become the most expensive 33-year-old in history when Juventus paid an Italian record €100m for his services in 2018. It’s already proved to be a shrewd bit of business for the Old Lady as the club’s shares not only jumped, his arrival has brought the much-needed fillip to an ailing Serie A.

Success also followed on the international scene as he led Portugal to their maiden international triumph at the 2016 European Championship. Three years later, he skippered the Selecao to victory at the inaugural European Nations League on home soil. After years of underachieving, Portugal under the aura of the indefatigable Ronaldo have become serial winners.

It’s no surprise that Portugal’s purple patch coincided with Ronaldo’s personal upturn in fortune. Having only scored 37 goals in his first 100 games, he has now netted 62 times in his last 64 games to bring his international tally to 99 goals – 10 short of the record set by Iran’s Ali Daei.

Ronaldo is Portugal’s leading scorer with 99 goals

To quote former US President Ronald Reagan, “Heroes may not be braver than anyone else. They’re just braver five minutes longer.”

And this is the story of Ronaldo (actually named after Reagan) as he continues to expand the vista for excellence.

At 35, the desire to win remains as strong as ever, and the secret was revealed in an interview he gave in 2012.

“I was in the swimming pool with my girlfriend and sometimes we like to have a race. Sometimes you have to give her an opportunity to be happy but I win because I don’t like to lose. It’s simple like that.”

Also crucial to his success is that impregnable belief in his own ability. While it is fashionable for players to be self-effacing, Ronaldo is quite the opposite as he is keen to be seen as top dog. Speaking on who is the better player between him and Messi, he said:

“I cannot control what the people like, some people like this player or that player. For me, I am the no 1 in history. I know I’m one of the greatest ever in the history of football.”

His bluntness has undoubtedly rubbed many the wrong way. But in his rivalry with Messi, he has excelled in his role as the ‘bad guy’. This was best illustrated in his winning goal and celebration at the Nou Camp as Madrid beat Barca 2-1 on their way to clinching the title in 2012 – ending Barca’s run of three successive titles under Pep Guardiola.

As he put it: “Your love makes me strong, your hate makes me unstoppable.”

Now in the twilight years of his career, with five ballons d’Or, four kids, a stunning partner and over a billion dollars in earnings, it’s natural to expect him to cruise to retirement. But he said in 2017 that he would like to have seven ballons d’Or and en equal number of children to match his CR7 brand. Smart money should be on him achieving it, particularly now that Messi has six ballons d’Or. It’s a measure of the man that just when we think he has done it all – he raises the bar again.

It’s anybody’s guess when or how his career will come to an end.

In the meantime however, we have a billion reasons to celebrate a truly supersonic superstar.