Cristiano Ronaldo
Cristiano Ronaldo dos Santos Aveiro (European Portuguese; born 5 February 1985) is a Portuguese professional footballer who plays as a forward for Serie A club Juventus and captains the Portugal national team. Often considered the best player in the world and widely regarded as one of the greatest players of all time, Ronaldo has won five Ballons d'Or and four European Golden Shoes, both of which are records for a European player. He has won 29 major trophies in his career, including six league titles, five UEFA Champions Leagues, one UEFA European Championship, and one UEFA Nations League. A prolific goalscorer, Ronaldo holds the records for the most goals scored in the UEFA Champions League (128), most hat-tricks in recorded history (56), joint-most hat-tricks in the UEFA Champions League (8), shared with Lionel Messi, most international goals by an active player (99) and the joint-most goals scored in the UEFA European Championship (9). He is the only player to score more than 60 goals in all competitions in 4 consecutive seasons. He is one of the few recorded players to have made over 1,000 professional career appearances and has scored over 700 senior career goals for club and country.
Cristiano Ronaldo dos Santos Aveiro was born in São Pedro, Funchal, on the Portuguese island of Madeira, and grew up in Santo António, Funchal. He is the fourth and youngest child of Maria Dolores dos Santos Viveiros da Aveiro (b. 1954), a cook, and José Dinis Aveiro (1953–2005), a municipal gardener and part-time kit man. His great-grandmother on his father's side, Isabel da Piedade, was from the island of São Vicente, Cape Verde. He has one older brother, Hugo (b. 1975), and two older sisters, Elma (b. 1973) and Liliana Cátia "Katia" (b. 1977), who is a singer. Ronaldo grew up in a Catholic and impoverished home, sharing a room with all his siblings. The name Ronaldo was added to Cristiano's name in honour of his father's favourite movie actor, Ronald Reagan, who was U.S. president at the time of Cristiano's birth.
A Portuguese international, Ronaldo was named the best Portuguese player of all time by the Portuguese Football Federation in 2015. He made his senior debut in 2003 at age 18, and has since earned over 160 caps, including appearing and scoring in ten major tournaments, becoming Portugal's most capped player and his country's all-time top goalscorer. He scored his first international goal at UEFA Euro 2004 and helped Portugal reach the final of the competition. He assumed full captaincy in July 2008, leading Portugal to their first-ever triumph in a major tournament by winning UEFA Euro 2016, and received the Silver Boot as the second-highest goalscorer of the tournament. He became the highest European international goalscorer of all-time in 2018.
One of the most marketable and famous athletes in the world, Ronaldo was ranked the world's highest-paid athlete by Forbes in 2016 and 2017 and the world's most famous athlete by ESPN from 2016 to 2019. Time included him on their list of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2014. As of April 2020, Ronaldo is also the most followed user on both Instagram and Facebook. With earnings of €720 million (£615 million) from 2010 to 2019, he was ranked second in Forbes list of highest-paid athletes of the decade.