rona

11 remarkable stories you might not know about Cristiano Ronaldo

Cristiano Ronaldo’s story has been well-documented enough over the years and rightly so. 

The Juventus forward is an inspiration to anyone who dreams of overcoming adversity and achieving greatness.

With a net worth in the region of £361 million, the Portuguese has enjoyed huge success off the pitch in addition to the five Ballons d’Or and 29 major honours he’s won as one of the greatest players of all time.

It’s earned him an army of fans across the world who, understandably, must feel they know the 35-year-old inside out by now.

Ronaldo’s every move makes headlines, whether he’s winning titles with the Bianconeri or expanding his collection of luxury cars.

Even so, there are just a smattering of anecdotes about his life which have somehow gone under the radar.

Inspired by ‘Soccer Stories – Oh My Goal’ on YouTube and their video ’11 things you didn’t know about Cristiano Ronaldo, we’ve decided to round up the best of them.

11. Ronaldo owns an $18.5m apartment in Trump Tower. He bought it in 2015, say Business Insider, and it includes 2,509 square feet of eighteenth-century Versailles wood flooring. How the other half live.

10. According to Men’s Health magazine, the ball often reaches speeds of 80 mph (130 km/h ) after Ronaldo’s strikes – nearly as fast as his cars.

9. While he’s enjoyed an incredible career, the former Manchester United and Real Madrid superstar was almost denied making it as a footballer at all. He underwent heart surgery at the age of 15 and his irregular heartbeat could otherwise have stopped him playing at the highest level.

8. Ronaldo could have signed for Juventus as early as 2002. He was thwarted by the Chilean striker Marcelo Salas, who refused to be part of a swap deal as he didn’t want to join Sporting Lisbon. Eventually, he made his way to Turin, but not until he left Madrid in 2018.

7. He could have taken a number of other paths, though – Liverpool tried to sign him as a youngster but the two parties couldn’t agree on wages. Lyon, on the other hand, rejected him altogether when Sporting offered him as part of a swap deal – the Ligue 1 club wanted hard cash, not an unproven teenager. Their loss, really.

6. As a child, Ronaldo shared a room with three of his siblings due to poverty. His father was an alcoholic. Now, it’s a very different story as he ensures mum Dolores enjoys her taste of the high life, recently gifting her a £100,000 Porsche, per The Sun.

5. According to the Portugal national team’s chef, there are a range of favourite foods that help to keep Ronaldo in peak condition: Bacalhau, risotto, Portuguese wine, fried polenta, and vegetable soup.

4. We’ve come to associate CR7 with – well, the number seven, inevitably – but that’s not the only number he’s used throughout his career. He’s also worn 17, 9 and 28.

3. Ronaldo is known for being obsessive about training, but he does have time for some hobbies. He loves poker and he’s so skilled that he’s competed against some of the world’s best players at PokerStars.

2. Journalist Guillem Balague recalls in ‘Cristiano Ronaldo: The Biography’ how a young Ronnie reacted to being teased at Sporting’s academy. One day, when he was being punished and was forced to take the bins out, he responded to his teammates making fun of him by shouting: “One day I’ll be the best player in the world and I’ll have loads of Ferraris!”

1. And speaking of his remarkable car collection, it’s now worth around £6m (via the Daily Mail). It includes a £260,040 Lamborghini Aventador, a £600,000 Mercedes which his girlfriend Georgina Rodriguez bought him for his 35th birthday, and two Bugattis each worth over £1m each. Not bad.

It’s a story that never ceases to amaze. Proper ‘rags-to-riches’ stuff.

And even as he enters the twilight of a phenomenal career, there’s still time for Ronaldo to achieve even more.

ngo 2

Okonjo Iweala

When I became finance minister, they called me Okonjo-Wahala – or ‘Trouble Woman.’ It means ‘I give you hell.’ But I don’t care what names they call me. I’m a fighter; I’m very focused on what I’m doing, and relentless in what I want to achieve, almost to a fault. If you get in my way, you get kicked.

Nelson-Mandela-South-African

Nelson Mandela

“Education is the great engine of personal development. It is through education that the daughter of a peasant can become a doctor, that the son of a mineworker can become the head of the mine, that a child of farm workers can become the president of a great nation. It is what we make out of what we have, not what we are given, that separates one person from another.”

rona

The Life Story Of Mike Tyson

A member of various street gangs at an early age, Tyson was sent to reform school in upstate New York in 1978. At the reform school, social worker and boxing aficionado Bobby Stewart recognized his boxing potential and directed him to renowned trainer Cus D’Amato, who became his legal guardian. Tyson compiled a 24–3 record as an amateur and turned professional in 1985.

D’Amato taught Tyson a peekaboo boxing style, with hands held close to his cheeks and a continuous bobbing motion in the boxing ring that made his defense almost impenetrable. At 5 feet 11 inches (1.8 metres) tall and weighing about 218 pounds (99 kg), Tyson was short and squat and lacked the classic heavyweight boxer’s appearance, but his surprising quickness and aggressiveness in the ring overwhelmed most of his opponents. On November 22, 1986, he became the youngest heavyweight champion in history, with a second-round knockout of Trevor Berbick, to claim the crown of the World Boxing Council (WBC). On March 7, 1987, he acquired the World Boxing Association (WBA) belt when he defeated James Smith. After he defeated Tony Tucker on August 1, 1987, Tyson was unanimously recognized as champion by all three sanctioning organizations (WBC, WBA, and International Boxing Federation [IBF]).

After the deaths of D’Amato and manager Jimmy Jacobs, Tyson aligned with controversial promoter Don King. He made 10 successful defenses of his world heavyweight title, including victories over former champions Larry Holmes and Michael Spinks. In 1988 Tyson married actress Robin Givens, but the couple divorced in 1989 amid allegations that Tyson had physically abused her. A myriad of assault and harassment charges were subsequently filed against Tyson.

In February 11, 1990, in one of the biggest upsets in boxing history, Tyson lost the championship to lightly regarded James (“Buster”) Douglas, who scored a technical knockout in the 10th round. Tyson rebounded from the loss with four straight victories. In 1991, however, he was accused of having raped a beauty pageant contestant, and he was convicted of the charge in 1992.

Following his release from prison in 1995, Tyson resumed boxing and in 1996 regained two of his championship belts with easy victories over Frank Bruno and Bruce Seldon. On November 9, 1996, in a long-anticipated bout with two-time heavyweight champion Evander Holyfield, Tyson lost for the second time in his professional career, by a technical knockout in the 11th round. In a rematch against Holyfield on June 28, 1997, he was disqualified after he twice bit his opponent’s ears, and, as a result of the infraction, he lost his boxing license.

Tyson eventually was relicensed, and he returned to the ring on January 16, 1999, when he knocked out Franz Botha in the fifth round. On February 6, however, Tyson was sentenced to one year in jail, two years of probation, and 200 hours of community service and was fined $2,500 after he pleaded no contest to charges that he had assaulted two elderly men following a 1998 automobile accident. Tyson was released after serving just a few months of the one-year sentence.

Nevertheless, Tyson’s self-control problems continued. After the referee stopped a fight in June 2000 with American Lou Savarese, Tyson continued punching and inadvertently injured the referee. In comments made to the press after this fight, Tyson outraged boxing fans with bizarre and vicious remarks about British heavyweight champion Lennox Lewis. In his October 2000 bout with Andrew Golota, Tyson won in the third round, but the fight was later declared a no contest because Tyson tested positive for marijuana. Tyson had only one more fight between October 2000 and his June 2002 fight with Lewis.

It had been difficult to schedule this fight. Both men were contractually bound to different promoters and cable television companies. Tyson had attacked and bitten Lewis during a press conference, which also had a dampening effect. Tyson’s legal problems caused him to be denied a boxing license by the sanctioning bodies of the U.S. states that usually hold major boxing matches (such as Nevada). It had been so long since Tyson had fought a boxer of his own calibre that no one knew the level of his skills. The question was settled when Lewis twice knocked Tyson to the canvas during the course of the fight before knocking him out in the eighth round.

Tyson had his final professional win in 2003, a 49-second first-round knockout. Later that year he filed for bankruptcy, claiming to be $34 million in debt after earning an estimated $400 million over the course of his career. Tyson lost bouts in 2004 and 2005, and he retired in the aftermath of the latter fight. In 2007 he served 24 hours in prison after pleading guilty to drug possession and driving under the influence, charges that stemmed from a 2006 arrest.

Tyson’s personal and professional exploits were recounted in the documentary Tyson, which premiered at the Cannes film festival in 2008, and in a one-man stage show, Mike Tyson: Undisputed Truth, which he first performed in Las Vegas in 2012. (The show was subsequently mounted on Broadway in a production directed by filmmaker Spike Lee.) He also appeared as himself in a number of television shows and films, including the blockbuster comedy The Hangover (2009) and its sequel (2011), as well as the animated television show Mike Tyson Mysteries (2014– ), a spoof on the various Scooby Doo cartoon series. His memoirs Undisputed Truth (2013) and Iron Ambition: My Life with Cus D’Amato (2017) were cowritten with Larry Sloman. Tyson was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 2011.