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Everything you always dreamed of knowing about Cristiano Ronaldo but never dared to ask. By Rui Miguel Tovar.
Rui Miguel Tovar
Rui Miguel Tovar
Everything you always dreamed of knowing about Cristiano Ronaldo but never dared to ask. By Rui Miguel Tovar.
Chapter 5. The mother (and the seven) always present
Dolores Aveiro is the ultimate example of good fatherhood, according to sporty father Aurélio Pereira.
There are coincidences and coincidences. This one is stunning: Ronaldo, the 7th by nature, signs for Sporting on the 7th of the 7th of 1997. No more, 7 July 1997. The football world rests, Aurélio Pereira not so much. Olheiro takes advantage of a trip to Madeira for the juniors, trained by his brother Carlos, and gathers Cristiano’s family at the Hotel Infante Dom Henrique, in the center of Funchal.
“We talked, had dinner and signed. It was on the 7th of June 1997. There is seven. He just asked ‘where is the pen, where is the pen?’ nice and useful to know Ronaldo’s foundations. I’ll never forget his little eyes, shining brightly, next to his mother Dolores – who is a Sporting fan from the seven sides. His father was too, and we even drank a poncha.”
We pass the ball to mother Dolores. “There were those Easter tournaments and they called me to speak with Mr. Aurélio Pereira at the Hotel Infante Dom Henrique. He told me ‘your son has a gift for football’ and asked if I would give him permission to go to Lisbon to do some proofs. I told him yes, because it was my club. If it wasn’t…”
Then? “Benfica had spoken to me first, but I said he would not go to Benfica. He went to Sporting, under the care of Mr. Aurélio. After the test in Lisbon, Mr. Aurélio told me that Cristiano was going to start living in Lisbon, at the player’s home. He was entitled to three trips a year and earned 10 contos.”
In case of crisis, for homesickness or any other detail, Sporting offered its services (and money) to ease the pain. Says mother Dolores, owner of the ball. “He had crises, because they made fun of him. Whether because of the way he spoke or because he was the smallest of his colleagues. When he had crises, he would talk to my director, who was from Sporting, and I would change my time off to spend the weekend -weekend to Lisbon. For me, it was like going to Venezuela. I’d bring him something branded at his request, because all his friends had them too and he was already happy. Then he’d sleep with me at the hotel, we’d go watch Sporting stadium and he was already more relaxed, he didn’t even think about returning home. Basically, we have to think that he was a 12-year-old boy alone in Lisbon, without family. internship and making the beds. Carlos Martins played with him and said ‘Ronaldo, there you go with your Ferrari’, which was the garbage can. And he said ‘you’re having fun, but one day I’ll have one”.
Loneliness has a lot to say, especially for young children. In Ronaldo’s case, there were tears on the phone calls home and other tense moments. One of the most famous is the day when the teacher thinks the Madeiran accent is funny and laughs. Ronaldo doesn’t like it at all and reacts. Strong and ugly. The thing bursts the scale and Ronaldo goes through difficulties. “Despite being a kid with some rebelliousness, he listened to me and heeded my advice”, Aurélio disagrees.
“One day, before a Sporting match in Madeira, Ronaldo had another disagreement with one of our teachers. As a (pedagogical) punishment, I decided to call him off. hey, it was a whimper. Preventing him from going to Madeira to see his family gave me a lot of trouble. But it had to be. A punishment is a punishment. And Ronaldo had behaved badly. I called the mother and informed her of everything. She gave me reason and spoke to Ronaldo, in the sense of pulling his ears and making him listen to reason. That’s why I say, Ronaldo’s mother is the ultimate example of good fatherhood, unless it is. Because they listen to their children, listen to problems, listen to Sporting and decide for the best. This groundwork is very important, perhaps the most important. Because if a father becomes a father-chick and goes against the club, the broth is spilled and the son will never grow properly within the structure idealized by us.”
Well, mother Dolores also remembers this episode. How not? “Ronaldo was angry, he even wanted to leave. But I told him ‘if you were with your mother, I would punish you. With them at Sporting, it’s the same. You have to know how to turn around.’ It was a pity, of course. The truth is that we were all frustrated, all of us, family and friends. We had even made welcome cards to wait for him at the airport, like ‘Força Ronaldo’. It was a real pity. nonsense, he had to be punished. And he learned to be a man in those times.”
Dolores’ presence in her son’s life is a constant, a kind of haven. “I started to live with him in Lisbon, from the moment he started to play with adults. I even remember the phase when he established himself as a professional player and asked me to finish his studies. Because that was hard: training in the morning, training in the afternoon and classes in the evening, from 7 am to 11 am, if I’m not mistaken. He called me to say he didn’t want to study anymore. that’s what you want, your mother will sign and you’ll be a football player’. So it was, I signed and he took the leap. We lived there at the Expo, in an apartment that belonged to Hugo Viana. I made him breakfast before training . And I would make him lunch after training. Same tactic in Manchester.”
(Author writes according to the old spelling.)
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