Cristiano Ronaldo was born on the Portuguese island of Madeira, in the city of Funchal with a population of about 112 thousand people. Ronaldo’s family was not rich: his mother was a cook, his father was a gardener. They took on several jobs so that the future football star would not be bullied because of poverty.
Ronaldo smashed windows with a ball and ran away from neighbors
On their home street, Ronaldo’s family was hated, because Cristiano constantly kicked the ball into the walls, breaking glass. The future football player ran away, and if he was grabbed by the scruff of the neck, he blamed others.
When disgruntled neighbors came to his mother, she refused to pay for the damage. “He annoyed someone every day,” recalled Joel Santos, who owned a bar 50 meters from Cristiano’s house.
Ronaldo was bullied at Sporting’s academy because of his accent
Ronaldo joined Sporting Lisbon’s academy as a teenager and quickly became a star — he was brilliant on the pitch. Despite this, Cristiano was bullied by his teammates. This is due to the accent that is common in Madeira. Ronaldo was very worried about ridicule: he locked himself in the room and cried, missing his family and friends.
Ronaldo once lost his temper when the teacher asked him to stand up and introduce himself. The footballer said in a creepy island accent: “Hi, I’m Cristiano Ronaldo and I’m from Madeira.”
His classmates and even the teacher laughed, after which Ronaldo got angry. He grabbed a chair and warned the teacher: if you continue to laugh, I will throw the chair at your head (according to another version, at the age of 14, Ronaldo threw a chair at a teacher who was talking about the poverty of his family, which is why he was expelled).
It was difficult for Ronaldo at the Sporting academy: almost every evening he called his mother asking him to take him home. Then the footballer admitted that this strengthened him and allowed him to settle into Manchester United without any problems. But in his youth he was called a whiner — Ronaldo cried constantly.
Ronaldo stole food and dropped out of school to play football
To stop people laughing at him, Ronaldo worked on his accent — he repeated words in his room until he brought his pronunciation to Lisbon. “The kids laughed at him a lot. But he is smart and knows how to quickly grasp information. Everyone says he’s stupid, but he was able to learn Spanish and English at a conversational level,” said his sister Elma Aveiro.
Ronaldo had behavior problems at school. One day, the director received a complaint that Cristiano, along with a teammate, stole a can of iced tea, two yoghurts from the canteen and ate the lunch of the sick Ruy Lopes without his permission.
Subsequently, Ronaldo abandoned his studies and focused on football. “I always felt like I wasn’t cut out for school. So what’s the point?” — Cristiano recalled.
Ronaldo constantly wanted to train — because of him they hung a lock in the gym
Ronaldo’s specialty is incredible hard work. He was very unhappy that he was not allowed to work out at the gym at a time convenient to him. The club had rules for youth team players that prohibited this.
Aurelio Pereira, head of the club’s academy, recalled: “We never train minors in the gym. This is one of the secrets of our players’ long careers. It’s important that they grow naturally.”
But Ronaldo didn’t care about the rules: he ran away at night, made his way into the gym and trained alone. One day he was noticed and punished. The club had to put a large lock on the door to prevent the player from getting in again.
Cristiano was so unstoppable that he decided to lift buckets of water and even tied weights to his ankles. “He always strived for more,” says strength coach Carlos Bruno. “Cristiano was a guy who always wanted to train.”