Cristiano Ronaldo is one of the footballers who earned the most money thanks to football. The former player of real Madrid it is on Al-Nasr, of the Saudi league, earns around two hundred million euros per season. A wild one.
However, his beginnings in the world of football are nowhere near the life he has led for the last fifteen years. The five-time Ballon d’Or winner had to move heaven and earth to eat and overcome the poverty where he was with his family when he was at the Sporting Lisbon Academy.
This is what he said Fabio Paimwho was his colleague at the Sporting de Portugal academy, in an interview with The Sun: “When we played for Sporting and lived in the academy, we lived in the stadium. In the evening we went to McDonald’s to get the hamburgers that no one wanted anymore and were no longer good enough to sell. We were there every night to get hamburgers, we ate the leftovers that were going to be thrown away. Sporting knows this. Not like today. “They let us out,” he said.
Paim, who retired from Polish LZS Staroice two years ago after joining more than fourteen teams throughout his sporting career, recalled the friendship he shared with the Portuguese star: “We were friends. I can’t say best friends but we became friends. I went on vacation with him. One was in Brazil, it was my first time in Brazil, before the 2004 Euro Cup. This is Cristiano’s first Euro Cup with the Portugal national team and before that we had a vacation.”
He also remembers with nostalgia the moments he lived with “the bug” and defined him as someone who always wanted to be the best: “The first time I met Cristiano I was eight years old, I was new at Sporting and we went to a tournament in Madeira. We had great times together, really good times. Football wasn’t too serious for us at that time. We were happy to be kids. I always remember Ronaldo as a great worker, really dedicated and someone who wanted to be the best. He’s always like that, angry when he loses. That effort brought him to where he is today.”.
“You must give me one of your Ballon d’Ors!”
He ends ironically about the comparison between his level and Cristiano’s: “I regret some decisions I made, but knowing myself as I know myself, it is impossible to be equal to Cristiano. But yes , at that moment I was better than Cristiano. ¡He should give me one of his Ballon d’Ors!”
The top scorer in the history of the Champions League is a reference for the young, and also for the old, how life should be approached in times of difficulty. He did this by fighting in the fields while he fought on the street to have a plate of food on the table. Only in this way was he able to achieve the success that gives him the award of one of the best players in the history of football.
Source: La Verdad
I’m Rose Herman and I work as an author for Today Times Live. My expertise lies in writing about sports, a passion of mine that has been with me since childhood. As part of my job, I provide comprehensive coverage on everything from football to tennis to golf.
