( excuse the botton line of the image ooops)So first let us nail those slurs on his education. His school in Madeira, Escola de São João, is a church school and thus strong on discipline and morality, and popular with all stratas of society. His former head teacher recalls in particular Ronaldo’s fine performance in the lead role of a school play about St Francis of Assisi. She says that she always suspected he rushed his homework in order to play football, but that he passed every year.
His sister, Elma, tells a similar story. “He was always in the street playing football,” she said. “The whole family told him to pay attention to his school-work, but he’d just stay in the street with his ball. But it was a good school. The only year that he did fail was when he was 11, when he moved to the mainland, to Sporting Lisbon.”
As for the popular depiction of an upbringing in Third World poverty, that is an exaggeration. Their father was a gardener, their mother a cook. “We worked for a living like everyone did,” Elma said proudly. “Cristiano didn’t have Nike shoes, but it’s not as if he was playing football in bare feet.”
“He was 6 when I got my first job, making aluminium window frames,” Hugo said. “And when Elma started working, too, we did get a better, more stable life. When I got home from work it was 9.30pm and he’d still be there kicking the ball against the wall and I’d have to tell him to go home.”
On the pitch back then, he is remembered for a similar single-mindedness. From his local team, he joined the academy of Nacional, the Madeira club, and neither can recall him enduring a single defeat without crying. “When they were losing, he’d be playing and crying at the same time,” Pedro Talhinhas, his coach at Nacional, said. “We’d talk to him about it but it was his will to win – it overcame his will to contain his tears.
“He was a natural leader, too, even of the boys two years older than him who he was playing with. But he had this troublesome temperament and would get angry and shout at them when he was losing.”
Goncalo Filipe, his former teammate, said: “I certainly remember the crying. We had a very good group and sometimes we’d hug him and tell him not to cry, but it didn’t make any difference. It makes me so proud to know I played with him and that he comes from Madeira.”
These days, Filipe plays third division football and works in a drinks-bot-tling plant. Of that Nacional academy side, the striker is now a mechanic, the captain a truck driver and the goal-keeper sells air-conditioning units. No one else made it in football – or even off the island.
What was special about Ronaldo? Talhinhas acknowledges that he was as good a junior as he ever had, but returns to this burning inner desire. “For someone from this small island to leave home for Sporting Lisbon so young was a very big step,” he said. “He had to go – he needed to be with other players as good as him. But I was concerned for him. Very often he’d say he wanted to come home. But he never gave up the dream.”
He mentions another boy, Steve Andrade, who was at Nacional’s big rivals, MarÍtimo, the same age as Ronaldo and rated his equal. Andrade, too, was offered an early ticket to the mainland, but opted to stay. Tomorrow, he will turn out for Madeira’s third division side, União. And the hearts and television sets of Madeira will be far away with Ronaldo at Wembley.
His sister, Elma, tells a similar story. “He was always in the street playing football,” she said. “The whole family told him to pay attention to his school-work, but he’d just stay in the street with his ball. But it was a good school. The only year that he did fail was when he was 11, when he moved to the mainland, to Sporting Lisbon.”
As for the popular depiction of an upbringing in Third World poverty, that is an exaggeration. Their father was a gardener, their mother a cook. “We worked for a living like everyone did,” Elma said proudly. “Cristiano didn’t have Nike shoes, but it’s not as if he was playing football in bare feet.”
“He was 6 when I got my first job, making aluminium window frames,” Hugo said. “And when Elma started working, too, we did get a better, more stable life. When I got home from work it was 9.30pm and he’d still be there kicking the ball against the wall and I’d have to tell him to go home.”
On the pitch back then, he is remembered for a similar single-mindedness. From his local team, he joined the academy of Nacional, the Madeira club, and neither can recall him enduring a single defeat without crying. “When they were losing, he’d be playing and crying at the same time,” Pedro Talhinhas, his coach at Nacional, said. “We’d talk to him about it but it was his will to win – it overcame his will to contain his tears.
“He was a natural leader, too, even of the boys two years older than him who he was playing with. But he had this troublesome temperament and would get angry and shout at them when he was losing.”
Goncalo Filipe, his former teammate, said: “I certainly remember the crying. We had a very good group and sometimes we’d hug him and tell him not to cry, but it didn’t make any difference. It makes me so proud to know I played with him and that he comes from Madeira.”
These days, Filipe plays third division football and works in a drinks-bot-tling plant. Of that Nacional academy side, the striker is now a mechanic, the captain a truck driver and the goal-keeper sells air-conditioning units. No one else made it in football – or even off the island.
What was special about Ronaldo? Talhinhas acknowledges that he was as good a junior as he ever had, but returns to this burning inner desire. “For someone from this small island to leave home for Sporting Lisbon so young was a very big step,” he said. “He had to go – he needed to be with other players as good as him. But I was concerned for him. Very often he’d say he wanted to come home. But he never gave up the dream.”
He mentions another boy, Steve Andrade, who was at Nacional’s big rivals, MarÍtimo, the same age as Ronaldo and rated his equal. Andrade, too, was offered an early ticket to the mainland, but opted to stay. Tomorrow, he will turn out for Madeira’s third division side, União. And the hearts and television sets of Madeira will be far away with Ronaldo at Wembley.
0 comments:
Post a Comment