Cristiano and Leo by Jimmy Burns

Author:Jimmy Burns
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pan Macmillan UK

However, even for the futuristic Cristiano, things were tough to begin with.

Firstly, they were a team surrounded by many strong characters. ‘In that moment we had Florentino’s ego wanting to be seen as the club’s saviour; his two protected “children”, Kaká and Benzema; the dressing-room bosses – Raúl, Casillas and an emerging Sergio Ramos; and then the arrival from Liverpool of Xabi Alonso, a strong personality in any team. Faced with all this, Ronaldo didn’t have it easy finding his space, to justify his presence, win the respect he felt he deserved,’ recalled Cristiano Ronaldo’s friend, the Spanish sports journalist Manu Sanz.8

However, seemingly at ease with the media attention and fan adulation not seen since the early days of Beckham, it took little time for Ronaldo to show that he had shrugged off the blues of his last season at United. In peak fitness, which contrasted with the post-holiday weight loss required by others in the team, he hit the ground running during an extended pre-season campaign mainly designed to maximize his impact on Real Madrid’s international marketing projection, including games in the US. ‘Ronaldo goes at warp speed. He is taking the team to another level,’ commented the veteran Real Madrid player and Spanish international Míchel Salgado, before moving to Blackburn Rovers later that summer. Pellegrini was impressed that Ronaldo was the first to turn up for training and ‘was completely down to earth and unassuming, with no superstar pretension’.9 He quickly bonded with his teammates, finding it easy to have Spanish as the main common language, given its similarities to Portuguese. His colleagues too would be won over by the hours he put in to his preparatory and recovery work before and after matches – in the gym, doing exercises with weights, and swimming in hot and cold water in his home pool – when other players were following a less strenuous regime. They tended to head out to supper with family or friends – a practice that a succession of coaches had accepted as part of the club culture, as long as it did not provoke scandal.

Ronaldo scored three goals in eight friendly matches over the summer, and showed off his repertoire of bicycle kicks, step-overs and lightning runs, making many more goals for his teammates. He got off to an impressive start competitively as well, scoring a penalty in his first appearance in La Liga against Deportivo de La Coruña at the Santiago Bernabéu and raising his fists to the stands as if to say, ‘I have arrived!’

In his Champions League debut against FC Zürich on 15 September, he showed his dexterity with the dead ball, scoring from two free kicks, two of the nine goals that helped Real Madrid win their first nine La Liga and Champions League games, including a thumping brace against Xerez.

But then he picked up an injury to his right ankle in a Champions League match against Olympique Marseille in September. He was playing again before he had fully recovered and

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