Saturday, 26 April 2008

Pub ammunition about the the United No. 7

He's one a sports biggest names at the moment, but here are some things you probably didn't know about Cristiano Ronaldo....

1) The footballing name ‘Ronaldo’ may be common in football, but not in Portugal.
His full name is Cristiano Ronaldo dos Santos Aveiro: his second given name came from an admiration of Ronald Reagan.
Cristiano’s late father’s was a great admirer of the former American president and one-time actor.

2) Ronaldo never wanted the famous No. 7 Manchester United shirt.
His number of choice was 28, but Sir Alex Ferguson handed him the No. 7 shirt on his arrival to Old Trafford so that he would be motivated to follow in the footsteps of George Best, Eric Cantona and David Beckham.

3) A new contract offer that is expected to be tabled to Ronaldo would make him the highest paid player in the Premiership.
United want him to commit himself to the club until 2014, which would leave him earning around £7-8 million a year.
Or just over £20,000 for a day’s work.

4) After the Tsunami hit south-east Asia at the end of 2004, Ronaldo flew to Indonesia to visit the areas affected and raised over 1 billion rupiah by auctioning off his personal sports gear.
That’s about £55,000.

5) Ronaldo came close to signing for Arsenal before his transfer to Manchester United in August 2003.
Arsene Wenger said:
“He was here much earlier - he could tell you that if he wants. One day I will tell you more about that story and you will be surprised. You will have to ask him how close it was.”

6) Ronaldo has a weakness for good old English grub.
From steak pie and chips to cream cakes, since moving to Manchester he has developed a real taste for the local takeaways.
So much so that at the start of this season, Ronaldo admitted that club officials warned him against such food “because it would not be good for my game.”

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

7) He's almost singlehandedly carrying my Fantasy Football team.

Matt Cutler said...

Ditto. But more importantly: would you?

Anonymous said...

Would I what? If you're implying what I think you're implying, hell no. He'd probably cry afterwards.