Goalscorers Have Personality And A Big Ego. Ronaldo Was The Best At All That.

By the time Cristiano Ronaldo was 12 years old, the decision had been made for him to leave his home on the island of Madeira and move to the Portuguese capital of Lisbon. Here was a boy, who shared a bedroom with his three siblings, the son of a hospitality cleaner and a father who was a war veteran and struggled with alcoholism, ready to take his first main step into the unknown.

There were obstacles when he arrived at Sporting CP’s youth academy. Plenty of them. Ronaldo, in fact, struggled with school so much that he was once expelled for throwing a chair at a teacher. He eventually persuaded his mother on the unthinkable – that education was not a priority and, essentially, he pleaded with her and his Sporting tutor to allow him to quit and focus on football alone. It was obviously a gamble.

He has even said it before. Had he not become a professional footballer, due to leaving school so early, Ronaldo had probably envisioned a life as a local fisherman.

Then there was the heart problem. At 15, he was diagnosed with tachycardia – a condition that caused an abnormally fast heart rate – even whilst he rested. This prompted surgery and was a terrifying situation for a young kid to deal with. But the surgery was successful and from that moment on, Cristiano Ronaldo’s full story began.

Here’s the other fact that most people forget. Ronaldo is not his last name. It’s Dos Santos Aveiro. Ronaldo was a name given by his father in honor of former U.S. President Ronald Reagan.

I presume it’s only right for Cristiano to have the name as Ronaldo, because like Reagan, he is known for being deeply disciplined with a slightly detached strategy against opponents. Like Reagan, a former actor, Ronaldo has also never been one to shy away from the limelight.

And that’s essentially what turned him into the player he ultimately became.

There is a perfection to Ronaldo’s football that is both inspiring and overwhelming. His search for an omnipotent identity has always been his greatest strength and, at times, his Achilles heel. Whilst Lionel Messi’s diminutive stature and introspective personality captivated fans from one dimension, Ronaldo’s focus was a flawless pursuit of impeccable athleticism and force. His training regime and eating habits are ludicrous to you or me, but it’s his obsession with discipline that gave him this 23-year career on the international stage. 

With regard to his actual game, I have always said that Ronaldo, to me, is the greatest goalscorer and finisher the men’s game will ever witness. And this, my friends, is the hardest job in football. To score goals. 

His 146 goals for Portugal, each one of them, were gigantic statements. Even the penalties. It’s why he celebrates with “SIUUUU” – an exaggerated expression of “si” — the Spanish and Portuguese word for yes. The celebration is an acceptance of grandiosity. A door of pomposity where the stadium, in unison, coronates him after landing on the ground after the 180 degree jump.

The entire notion of the celebration, now glorified and globalized around the world, is Ronaldo’s way of telling the opponent, the stadium, the world, that – at this very moment – he is the one in charge.

The longevity of his career is also something to truly respect and appreciate. When he played his first European Championship, Lamine Yamal was three. Ronaldo is the only player to have featured at six Euros. It’s almost inconceivable to believe that the one he led Portugal as champion (after a 1-0 win over then-host France) came in 2016.

Alongside Messi and Guillermo “Memo” Ochoa, he has also appeared in six World Cup editions (though Messi and Ronaldo were the ones to play in each one). Across the two marquee competitions (Euros and World Cup), Ronaldo also scored 25 goals. No other player has that record. Since 2004, Ronaldo has scored at least one goal for Portugal for 23 straight calendar years. He also holds the record for most men’s international appearances with 234 and his quest to score 1,000 goals will continue during his time with his club Al-Nassr.

These are incredible numbers.

The five-time Ballon d’Or winner will retire from Portugal, however, without a World Cup. And this will undoubtedly remain a ghost that he will never be able to scare away. His recent altercation with national team manager Jorge Jesus after leaving camp in the previous window, followed by a lengthy statement on social media, was the reluctance of a once-complete specimen admitting that his powers are dwindling. He just didn’t want to come to terms with it. 

In the same way Narcissus died because of being too enamored with his own reflection, I think Ronaldo’s supercilious personality often became his own worst enemy. 

vs.

Ronaldo vs. Messi

International careers

146

International goals

126

234

International appearances

208

27

World Cup games played

34

11

World Cup goals scored

21

Messi won the 2022 World Cup and lost two finals (2014, 2026).

But this truthfully is what made Ronaldo and why, as I said, he will go down as the greatest finisher in the history of the sport. It’s his selfish, vindictive hunger for goals that built this transformer. Goalscorers, by nature, have to be selfish. They need an ego if they are to succeed and there has never been a higher example of goalscoring success than Ronaldo.

So there you have it. Cristiano Ronaldo leaves Portugal as the nation’s greatest player and alongside Messi, there is obviously a conversation about his legacy as the greatest in history. It’s not up to me to tell you otherwise, either or, but to remind you that in their heyday, we were all blessed with having witnessed the greatest rivalry in football history — perhaps in any sport.

Cristiano Ronaldo, the boy from Madeira who needed to literally slow down his heart, finally accepts that it’s time to put on the brakes and close the curtains on the international stage.