Cristiano Ronaldo still lives and breathes soccer, but with babies 5 and 6 on the way, his favorite thing in the world is being a dad—and he’s been busy shaping his legacy for life after sports.
You don’t have to be a football fan to know Cristiano Ronaldo.
Nor do you even have to know that by football we mean soccer, which is what the game is called in the United States, while “American football” is how the rest of the world refers to our humble little sport.
And since it’s quite possible that fans are as familiar with the cut of Ronaldo’s abs as they are with his attack style on the pitch, he’s been one of the most-watched players on and off the field, no matter what country you’re watching from, for years.
These days, however, you’d think that the Portuguese athlete, who’s celebrating his 37th birthday Feb. 5, might be thinking longer and harder about life after football, especially now that his professional journey has taken him back to where he started, wearing No. 7 for Manchester United. (Well, first he was No. 28 but then took over 7 after David Beckham left Man U, and good gracious he’s been playing a long time!)
Ronaldo returned to Man U after a three-year run with Italy’s Juventus, which broke the country’s record for player acquisition (and the all-time record for a player over 30) when it acquired the star from Spain’s Real Madrid for $128 million (today’s conversion from euros) in July 2018.
He also remains a member of Portugal’s national team and is the all-time leading scorer in international competition, with 115 goals. And apparently he’s not thinking all that hard about retirement.
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“I still have a passion for the game,” Ronaldo said while being honored at the Best FIFA Awards in Zurich last month. “It’s to entertain myself and I have played football since I was 5 or 6 years old. I feel joy when I train and my motivation is still there. I’m going to be 37 soon but I feel motivated. People ask me how many years I’m going to continue playing—I hope to play for four or five more years. Physically if you treat your body well, it will give you something back. I love the game and I want to continue.”
The now veteran forward turned pro at 17 and after a year with Sporting PC in Lisbon spent six years Manchester United—one of the richest football clubs in the world—until Real Madrid, also one of Europe’s most storied and decorated teams, paid a then-record $105 million for him in 2009.
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In 2016, he signed a four-year extension with Real Madrid that netted him upward of $50 million a year through the 2020-21 season. Just as the ink was drying on that contract, he became the third athlete ever, after Michael Jordan and LeBron James, to sign a lifetime deal with Nike—meaning the swoosh will be going wherever he goes for the remainder of his professional career and beyond—said to be worth roughly $1 billion.
Ronaldo ended up the first-ever soccer player to top Forbes‘ list of the world’s highest-paid athletes, and he reigned supreme from June 2015 to June 2017. In 2021, he landed in third place with $120 million—$70 million on and $50 million off the field.
Unsurprisingly, Ronaldo’s social media presence—399 million Instagram followers and counting—is one of the most valuable in all of pop culture, let alone sports, and his accounts regularly out-engage his fellow soccer stars, according to Hookit, which tracks digital and social media sponsorship value. In 2019, Forbes reported that he was making as much as $44 million for product placement in his posts.
Yet it all isn’t fun and a literal game.
“I have what I have because I’ve sacrificed a lot,” he said in Ronaldo, a 2015 documentary about his life.
And he does indeed have a lot, much of which he shows off on his enviable Instagram account, which alongside charming family photos is full of workouts, exotic cars, private jet travel, of course lots of soccer action, a healthy helping of shirtless snaps and whichever products he’s endorsing on any given day.
Whenever possible, along for the ride is his longtime partner Georgina Rodríguez (he thanked his “wife” at the FIFA Awards) and their 4-year-old daughter together, Alana Martina; his 11-year-old son Cristiano Jr., and 4-year-old twins Mateo and Eva Maria. And this team is only growing: Ronaldo shared in October that he and Rodríguez have twins on the way. (You can catch up with what her daily life is like on Netflix’s I Am Georgina.)
Men’s Health deemed Ronaldo the world’s fittest athlete in 2014, and he topped Sports Illustrated‘s 2017 list of the 50 Fittest Male Athletes. His workout routine and dietary discipline are legendary in sports circles and he’s got the physique to prove it—which he does, time and again, by doffing his shirt on the field and modeling his own CR7 underwear.
The CR7 portfolio also includes fragrances, eyewear and clothing for adults and kids.
Being that this chiseled superstar with ball-handling prowess to spare and many entrepreneurial side hustles has a taste for fast cars and fashion (not a lot of use for shirts though), and is downright worshiped by female and male fans alike, surely he’s got to be just insufferable on those few occasions when he has to interact with the real world, right?
Well, actually, he has been known to exhibit a smidgen of arrogance, on the field and off.
He didn’t exactly get rave reviews from his supermodel ex Irina Shayk after they announced their breakup in 2015 after five years together—supposedly, as was the prevailing rumor at first, because Shayk didn’t attend his mother’s 60th birthday party, and family is everything to him.
“Any negative rumors with regards to Irina and the Ronaldo family are completely false and have not been a factor in the cause of the spilt,” Shayk’s rep said in a statement. Ronaldo stated that the split was mutual and he wished his ex “the greatest happiness.”
Rumors that Ronaldo had cheated on multiple occasions started to build steam, and in June 2015 a former Playboy Playmate told Mexico’s Reforma (via Daily Mail) that she hooked up with Ronaldo the previous November in the U.S., when he and Shayk were still together. The Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue cover girl was noticeably absent when Ronaldo was presented with his second straight Ballon d’Or at the beginning of 2015.
Before the Playmate spoke out, Shayk had told Spain’s Hola about relationships, “Of course I prefer to be with someone, but with the right someone. It’s very simple. You have to be faithful to your other half and not have secrets. That’s my rule.”
After the split Ronaldo was quickly linked to Real Madrid TV presenter Lucia Villalon and then Marisa Mendes, the daughter of his agent Jorge Mendes. Neither ever panned out seriously.
On the U.K.’s Jonathan Ross Show in November 2015, he admitted that “a few” women were vying for his attention. “I have to figure it out. Some know [about the others]. I’m normal.” He was still figuring out “who is better.”
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He said that being so famous both helped and hurt when it came to finding someone to get serious about.
“To speak serious, it is not easy,” Ronaldo said. “I know 50 percent approach just for interest. It’s normal, not just me, but all the people who are famous, they have these kinds of problems.”
He added, smiling, “I think I am a confident guy. I’m tall, have all my teeth, have a nice body. So I think the other 50 percent, it’s because…”
They have eyes?
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Also in November 2015, Ronaldo—a sweeping look at his life, from childhood to mega-stardom, that also touched on his relationship with Cristiano Jr. and the difficulties of having to be away so much for work—excised Shayk from the picture.
“Life has good parts and bad parts, and there are parts of one’s life that are not important,” Ronaldo said coolly in discussing the film at the time. Director Anthony Wonke said they had footage of Irina, “but the movie is short.”
So let’s just say that, by then, his eye was back on the ball.
After Ronaldo clinched the 2016 Champions League title for Real Madrid that May by kicking the deciding penalty shot, he ripped off his shirt to punctuate the victory. Critics complained of poor sportsmanship, to which Ronaldo replied that “only the jealous” had a problem with him.
“Cristiano didn’t play anything until the last two months of the season,” Atletico Madrid player Filipe Luis complained to Peteka in September 2017 after Ronaldo won his second straight Ballon d’Or, and fifth overall (bestowed by the French magazine France Football, it’s a player-of-the-year honor; from 2010 to 2015 it was known as the FIFA Ballon d’Or).
Ronaldo was seeing less playing time with both Real Madrid and Portugal’s national squad due to injuries and his coaches’ wishes to keep him healthy for bigger games (which he’s also been accused of proverbially “not showing up for” over the course of his career, despite plenty of evidence to the contrary), and he started 2017-18 league play on the sidelines.
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“I’m very happy, it’s a fantastic moment in my career,” Ronaldo said at the award ceremony in July 2017. “We had an incredible year, winning the Champions League and La Liga. On a personal level, I was the top scorer in the Champions League. These collective trophies have helped me win this individual accolade, so I must thank my teammates at Real Madrid and for Portugal, and everyone else who has helped me get here.”
A few months later he didn’t score when Portugal clinched its 2018 World Cup berth with a 2-0 win over Switzerland; the team would be knocked out in the round of 16 by Uruguay, but Ronaldo did all the scoring and became the oldest player ever at 33 to have a hat trick in a World Cup match in their first game, a 3-3 draw with Spain.
However, in 2017 Luis was preaching to a choir that agreed that those who vote on the Ballon d’Or focus too much on the final months, or weeks even, of the season, rather than on the whole year. Same with the critics who are perennially annoyed by the lack of recognition for players in the Premier League (where Ronaldo won his first Ballon d’Or, with Man U). And some sort of controversy has dogged Ronaldo practically every time that he’s won.
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In 2013, after both Ronaldo and his designated rival in skill, fame and money, Barcelona star Lionel Messi, were short-listed for the Ballon d’Or, then-FIFA president Sepp Blatter called the Argentinian Messi “a kind man and a good boy” and said that “one spends more time at the hairdresser’s than the other.”
While Real Madrid demanded that Blatter apologize, Ronaldo posted his own response online. “This video shows the respect and consideration that FIFA has for me, my club and my country,” he said, deadpan, in the clip he shared on social media. “Much is explained now. I wish Mr. Blatter health and a long life, with the certainty that he’ll continue to witness the successes of his favorite teams and players.”
Incidentally, Blatter was ousted from his post in the wake of a major corruption scandal in 2015 and was banned from FIFA for six years.
When Ronaldo won his second straight Ballon d’Or as the 2014 player of the year, as expected after Real Madrid’s Champions League win—during which he was slapped with a yellow card for ripping his shirt off like the Hulk to celebrate a goal—his brashness was once again pitted against Messi’s more genial, albeit similarly enigmatic, persona.
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“I think they have a problem, maybe it’s envy,” Real Madrid teammate Marcelo surmised to reporters in April 2017 after a victory over Bayern Munich, referring to the amount of heat Ronaldo gets seemingly just for existing at times. “I don’t know what’s wrong with them, he works hard and helps his team. It must be envy, you only have to look at this numbers and he still keeps on producing.
“He’s happy to have scored but even happier about the result.”
Real Madrid went on to beat Juventus for the Champions League title in 2017, their third title in four seasons, and Ronaldo scored the 600th goal of his career, one of two he made during the final match that June.
“The people who always criticize Cristiano are going to have to put their guitar back in its case,” the fiery forward told reporters afterward, noting that his team would be going for three in a row in 2017-18.
A year later, they won their third in a row.
