Cristiano Ronaldo

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