Cristiano Ronaldo - Definition and Overview

Cristiano Ronaldo in his Portuguese international strip

Cristiano Ronaldo (full name Cristiano Ronaldo dos Santos Aveiro; born February 5, 1985, Madeira, Portugal) is a Portuguese footballer who was signed by Manchester United in 2003 for £12.24m.

Widely regarded as one of the premier talents in European football, Ronaldo originally played for Portuguese team Sporting Lisbon, a team famous for producing Real Madrid star Luis Figo.

Able to use either foot and play on both sides of the pitch, he attracted the attentions of Alex Ferguson in the summer of 2003, when Sporting Lisbon beat Manchester United 3-1 in the inauguration of the Alvalade XXI stadium. Now playing his trade for the English giants, Ronaldo has earned a good amount 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, scoring the first goal against Millwall.

Ronaldo made his international debut in August 2003, against Kazakhstan. He scored Portugal's only goal in their 2-1 loss to Greece in the opening match of Euro 2004, and the first goal of the semi final against the Netherlands which Portugal won 2-1.

External links

• About C. Ronaldo on official Man Utd's site (http://www.manutd.com/bio/bio.sps?iBiographyID=9737)
• Polish site about Cristiano Ronaldo (http://ronaldo.devilpage.pl)