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Biography of Cristiano Ronaldo - Soccer
Biography
C
Cristiano Ronaldo (full name Cristiano Ronaldo dos Santos Aveiro; born February 5, 1985, Funchal, Madeira Islands|Madeira, Portugal) is a very sexy Portugal|Portuguese football player, who plays for Manchester United of England. Widely regarded as one of the premier talents in European football, Ronaldo originally played for Portuguese team Sporting Clube de Portugal|Sporting Lisbon, a team famous for producing Inter Milan star Luis Figo. Able to use either foot and play on both sides of the pitch, he attracted the attentions of Sir Alex Ferguson in the summer of 2003, when Sporting Lisbon beat Manchester United 3-1 in the inauguration of the Estádio José Alvalade|Alvalade XXI stadium. After the match, United's players spoke enthusiastically of the young talent that they had just played against saying they would rather have him play on their team then have to play against him in the future. That was enough for Sir Alex Ferguson to decide that he wanted the youngster for his team, who were in the market for a right-sided midfielder, signing him for £12.24 million pounds after recently completing the transfer of David Beckham out of the club. Since debuting for the famous England|English club, Ronaldo has earned a equal amounts of praise and criticism for his flashy style of play and dribbling tricks. He demonstrated these at the 2004 FA Cup final in Cardiff's Millennium Stadium, in which he starred, scoring the first goal in United's 3-0 win over Millwall F.C.|Millwall. In his second season at United, Ronaldo has grown as a player, notably starring in the memorable 4-2 demolition of champions Arsenal F.C.|Arsenal at their Highbury stadium. The doubts over his 'flashy' style and perceived inability to produce an 'end product', the final killer cross or pass to set-up a goal, must surely now have been allayed, as Ronaldo has consistently been one of United's most dedicated and effective players in a season of highs and lows. United reached the FA Cup final, but had disappointing campaigns in the Premier League and Champions League. Ronaldo made his international debut in August 2003, against Kazakhstan national football team|Kazakhstan. He scored Portugal's only goal in their 2-1 loss to Greece national football team|Greece in the opening match of 2004 European Football Championship|Euro 2004, and the first goal of the semi final against the Netherlands national football team|Netherlands which Portugal won 2-1. The final saw a rematch of the opening game of the tournament and again, Greece national football team|Greece emerged victorious. Though the tournament ended in disappointment for Ronaldo, he had truly come of age as a player. Ronaldo proudly represented Portugal at the 2004 Summer Olympics|2004 Olympic Games. As of 11 June 2005, he has scored 10 goals in 24 appearances for his country. Ronaldo is currently the second highest scorer in World Cup qualification in the European zone with 7 goals so far, ahead of established strikers like Andrei Shevchenko and Manchester United team-mates Ruud van Nistelrooy and Wayne Rooney. Ronaldo's good looks has also made him a sex symbol, which he has used to do some modeling. == Honours == *FA Cup winner (2004) *Euro 2004 finalist (2004) *UEFA Team of the Year (2004) *FA Cup finalist (2005) == Charity == Ronaldo has also done charity work, including recently flying out a young Indonesian tsunami survivor and his father to attend one of their World Cup qualifiers, covering all their expenses and they all contributed money to buy them a house in Indonesia. After the two World Cup qualifiers in June, Ronaldo flew to Indonesia to visit the areas affected by the tsunami and to raise funds. He met the Prime Minister of Indonesia, the President of East Timor and raised over 1 billion rupiah by auctioning off his personal sports gear. ==Trivia== His second name (Ronaldo) is relatively rare in Portugal. His parents got inspration from the name of the US president Ronald Reagan. During Euro 2004 in Portugal, Cristiano Ronaldo was voted the sexiest player on the Portuguese national team by PortugalGay.PT website visitors. Cristiano was followed in the list by Nuno Gomes and Pauleta. Ronaldo endorses Nike, Pepe Jeans and Suzuki cars, among other products. Ronaldo drives a silver Porsche ==Ronaldo sites & links== *http://www.cristiano-ronaldo.org Cristiano Ronaldo's Fans *http://uk.sports.yahoo.com/fo/profiles/19316.html Yahoo Sports *http://www.r-revolution.blogdrive.com A Ronaldo Blog with writer's musings and media snippets *http://www.ronaldoattack.com Ronaldo Attack *http://www.c-ronaldo7.skyblog.net Skyblog: c-ronaldo7 *http://portugolo.free.fr/videosronaldo.php Ronaldo videos *http://www.footymania.com/player.phtml?playerID=1 08 FootyMania.com => Cristiano Ronaldo Profile *http://ronaldo.devilpage.pl Polish site about Cristiano Ronaldo *http://www.manutd.com/bio/bio.sps?iBiographyID=97 37 About C. Ronaldo on official Man Utd's site *http://www.4thegame.com/club/manchester-united-fc /player-profile/4021/cristianoronaldo.html 4theGame.com Cristiano Ronlado

