Cristiano Ronaldo: Impossible to Ignore (2021) Movie Script
In my mind, I'm always the best.
I don't care what the people
are thinking, what they say.
In my mind, I'm always the best.
All this happen because a reason.
The reason is I'm
unbelievable inside the pitch.
This is why the people have
so much interest in me.
The numbers say everything.
Hm.
The allure of Ronaldo...
It's the man that's got it all.
How many other men on the planet
would you say that he's
got everything?
Do you know what I mean?
You can go through the list of
things that you...
You know what I'm talking about.
The best footballer...
the most goals...
played at the biggest clubs...
won the biggest titles...
...got a beautiful family.
Everyone would want to
be in that man's shoes.
If you're growing up as a kid
and you say, "I want..."
He'd be one of your top picks.
18-year-old Cristiano Ronaldo,
wearing 7,
David Beckham's old shirt.
He is twinkle-toed and skilful, and
full of tricks and full of magic.
That ability to...
...repeat the stuff that others
aren't willing to do.
That's what his real talent is.
The fans, they get crazy,
they get mad,
they don't know how to react
when they get close to him.
They try to jump,
they try to... to touch him,
to have a one-second opportunity
to be close, or to sign something.
Love him or loathe him,
Manchester United's Ronaldo
is now the most expensive
footballer in the world.
He doesn't care
what you think of him.
He doesn't care how
you feel about his success.
He will preen and
he won't apologise.
He'll strut around saying,
"I've won."
You know, "This is me."
And people don't always like this.
Maybe some ones
don't like me, but...
Because maybe I'm too good.
He's a winner.
For me, getting to the top was
predominantly about work ethic,
mentality, wanting to be
the best, hating losing,
always wanting to win, which is
the things that I see in him.
We've been better than them,
we've played better than them,
so we deserve to win the league.
He will look you straight in the eye
and he will tell you he's the best.
But at the same time, he will be
so keen to emphasise just how
much hard work went
in to him being the best.
He's just different. He's made
different, built differently.
Ronaldo!
Goal, goal, goal!
Golazo!
Goal, goal, goal, goal, goal!
Cristiano Ronaldo!
What a strike!
Now it's Ronaldo time.
Ronaldo!
He creates moments that...
...hardly anybody else can.
After much speculation
on a possible transfer...
One of the world's greatest ever...
Cristiano Ronaldo...
To join Juventus in a deal worth...
A reported 100 million.
Yeah, I have to say...
...yes, I was surprised.
When the first... When the news
first started to rumble, you think,
"That's probably just a rumour."
The headlines in Italy on the day of
his arrival were just crazy in love.
"He Arrives" was the headline of
the most famous sports newspaper.
This man, this figure, the myth,
legend, the icon has arrived.
Cristiano Ronaldo
est officiellement...
Oh, my God, you guys, like,
this is going to be insane.
It was Ronaldo.
What Juventus get when
they sign Cristiano Ronaldo
is the reigning Ballon d'Or holder,
the best player in the world.
He's 33.
You go, "100 million? Really?"
But he's still incredibly fit,
looks after himself properly.
Juve effectively get
the world's biggest star.
Madeira is special.
Not just because I was born there,
but all my family's there.
My friends and uncles,
everyone is there,
and this is why it's a
special island for me.
Cristiano Ronaldo documentary,
Mr Fernao, take one.
Cristiano Ronaldo!
We'd just missed out on signing
Ronaldinho. We were all excited
and we was away thinking
we're going to get Ronaldinho.
Then he went and
signed for Barcelona,
and everyone was,
like, a bit deflated.
Don't get Ronaldinho. Then we play
Sporting, and we're in the tunnel,
and then all of a sudden you start
getting whispers
they've got a kid called Ronaldo,
meant to be half decent,
a young kid meant
to be really good.
I don't think anything of it.
Then the game starts,
and then you look at each other,
and you're like...
..."OK."
He's doing mad stuff,
he's embarrassing
a couple of our players.
It was a bit of a sandpit,
the pitch, to be fair,
but he was dancing on it
like it was a normal pitch.
Then I remember at half-time
when I was going to the toilet,
I think with Nicky Butt
and Scholesy,
I think it might have been, and we
were all standing there, saying,
"Oh, my God,
we've got to sign him."
And then the game finished,
and we were all sat on
the coach after, waiting.
Everyone's sitting there going,
"We've been here waiting an hour.
"Like, what's going...? We've got
to get to the airport." Blah-blah.
Then it starts to...
The noise starts travelling back
through the coach that Mr Gill,
who was the CEO at the time,
and the manager are in there,
and they've got Cristiano
in a vice-like lock, waiting, so he
can't leave the stadium
until he signs and agrees to come
to United.
So I think that was where
the deal was agreed,
and then the rest is history.
The interesting thing about Ronaldo
is there was scepticism
even before he'd played a game.
That was simply the way where
you've signed a Portuguese teenager.
And that was the kind of culture
of English football at the time.
...replacing the summer departures.
And according to their manager,
Cristiano Ronaldo and Kleberson
are the men to bring Manchester
United success among Europe's elite.
He seems to get these players,
and they sit around for months
and months and months on end,
and then we struggle early on in the
season and he starts to play them.
Or he gets upset and
he starts to sell them.
It doesn't make any sense.
I don't know what he's doing
this season, but we'll see.
He just looked happy to be there.
He's like a kid in a sweet shop.
And you could see he just wanted to
get working and that was it.
He's two-footed, he's quick,
he's brave, he's...
As you say, he's tall,
he's good in the air.
He can play either side,
wide right or wide left.
He could play through the middle.
We know this having seen him
over the last two years.
So...
...there's enormous talent there.
He arrived the gawky,
not very worldly-wise Bambi.
His skin still bore the evidence
that he was pretty young.
His teeth weren't Hollywood.
Now just to the cameras, please.
And every dressing room,
particularly that
Manchester United dressing room,
is a school of hard knocks.
My office was always in the gym.
So I was always
available for anybody
whenever they wanted to talk.
Because the talking and the
listening is really what gets you
used to what they're saying
and why they're saying it
and how to actually work with them.
Power development is basically
looking at all the different
things that the brain
has to focus on.
It's listening to the player
and finding out
what they need in their minds
that's the key, the important key.
It's that mind of the person.
It's not the body at all,
it's the brain.
It's the athlete
who trains the body.
We've got to train the brains
what you need to do with your body.
You know, how we do that.
And it's not just on the physical
side, it's on the mental side,
it's on the emotional side,
it's on the spiritual side.
I'm at Carrington
and I'm in my chair, in the gym,
and this young lad turns up
early in the morning.
He said, "I've heard about you and
I know that you do a lot of work
"individually with
a lot of the players."
And he said, "I want to be
the best player in the world."
18-year-old Cristiano Ronaldo,
wearing 7,
David Beckham's old shirt,
comes on for Nicky Butt.
And he is twinkle-toed and skilful,
and full of tricks
and full of magic.
He came on essentially sort
of billed as David Beckham's
long-term replacement,
and by the end of the game had just
completely eradicated that
hanging spectre.
He was... He was sensational
in that first game.
Cristiano Ronaldo, who absolutely
roasted United in a friendly
recently for Sporting Lisbon, has
caused pandemonium since he came on.
But there was a kind of rowing
back after that, as there always
is with young players,
and he did take a while to adapt.
In his first season,
he used to go down too early.
What it did,
particularly away from home,
it turned the crowd
against him and the team.
And now Ronaldo
trying to get through.
And Ronaldo will be
cautioned here for taking a dive.
No contact at all.
When he first signed, he was
about skills, about entertaining,
about being, like, the guy in the
crowd, to entertain the crowd,
rather than end product.
Everybody's talking
about the end product
and that's what he's got
to deliver. I mean, the tricks
and the party pieces
are all very well,
but what you've got to define is
whether you want to play with him
or against him,
as I said at half-time.
And still the jury would be out.
Ronaldo in the early years
was kind of looked upon
as unbelievably talented but a
little bit of a show pony at times.
And he used to do, obviously,
a massive amount of stepovers.
Ronaldo.
Sometimes it's one
stepover too many.
Cross the ball.
There's only so many
stepovers you can do.
Someone like Ruud van Nistelrooy,
the top goal-scorer at the club,
is waiting for the ball
to be crossed in the box.
If you want to affect the game
and be deemed a superstar,
you've got to cross the ball.
He got kicked every single day.
Because of his skill,
because of the fact
that he liked to commit one v one,
because of his... the style
in which he played, the defenders
would kick him every single day.
And every time he got kicked,
he never moaned.
The best and the biggest
learning curves, I think,
he got from his team-mates.
Just say, "I enjoy game.
I dribble very well."
"I enjoy game."
Right, guys, when you're ready.
Cristiano, are you feeling more
and more confident with each game?
No understand.
Are you confident?
No understand. Sorry.
Gary, he's looking confident
anyway, Gary.
Yeah, he is confident.
He's... Confident?
Here, you're Man of the Match,
well done.
You go.
His first season, he was good.
The second season, he was beginning
to score goals, win matches,
play in all the biggest games,
win trophies.
And this was his moment.
It was his moment in his home
country, it was his moment
when the whole world was watching.
I always thought that
that's the arena,
that's the moment that he craved
for and dreamt of all his life.
You have to remember that
even before that tournament,
everyone was talking
about Wayne Rooney.
Ronaldo was another
very promising footballer.
It was during that tournament he
really emerged as this phenomenon.
And by the time he got to
the final,
you realised that there
was something astonishing in this
Portugal team and
a really grand talent.
Everyone calls me Lucy, but my
name's Lucia Roberta Tough Bronze.
My mum's obviously English,
and my dad's fully Portuguese,
born and raised there.
I had the full Portugal kit...
green shorts, the socks, everything.
I'd be out in the streets
playing in this kit.
Everyone thought
that would be our Euro,
we were playing beautiful football,
probably the easiest team
to get in the final,
and they surprised us.
The Greek supporters at that end
are getting very,
very excited now.
Dellas jumping with the goalkeeper.
And scoring!
Charisteas is the player
that got the touch.
It was almost meant to be
for Portugal and for Ronaldo
and for the country, and then
it was that underdog story,
which I think anybody who didn't
have an association with Portugal
probably absolutely loved it.
All eyes now will be on Markus
Merk, the dentist from Hamburg.
And he blows!
And the unbelievable,
the unfathomable,
and the almost impossible
has happened.
Greece have won Euro 2004.
Portuguese faces tell the story.
For most footballers, just
reaching the final and emerging
as a world star at that tournament
would've been a huge achievement.
But Ronaldo being a
psychopathically driven winner,
it obviously came as a huge
personal blow not to go on
and just win the thing.
The biggest and best
players in any industry,
when you don't win or you don't get
something over the line, then it's
time to reflect and analyse, and
then go back to the drawing board.
And I think that's
what he 100% done.
He came back
with a different focus.
And he weren't going to
be derailed by one failure.
It's crazy, cos we used to
play table tennis quite a lot,
and if I won, he wouldn't want
to stop. He'd want to go again.
But you get some people that,
when they lose, they shy away.
They think, "That's enough for me,"
and don't really come back.
So you see a lot of traits
in someone in even little instances
like that, and he's not
someone who gives up.
This is Cristiano Ronaldo.
Plenty of red shirts forward.
Oh, what a special goal!
Cristiano came in
and quickly embedded
himself in the DNA of the club.
He had experienced players
around him who knew how to win,
and I think he took all
that on board.
By the time the 2006 World Cup
came around,
Ronaldo was an established
world star.
We knew how good he was.
He hadn't quite moved yet to
that higher plane,
and that would come in the
tournament and just after it.
It was an England side
we expected to do well.
Rooney, Ronaldo were team-mates.
England had some injuries,
but Rooney would be playing up
front on his own.
And he was still the golden child,
he was still considered
the most talented, the most
promising young player in Europe.
He was probably ahead of Ronaldo
at that point.
And you had a feeling
even on the day of the match
that something was going to happen
here and that this game was going
to be played out between
these two personalities.
Look at Rooney there,
battling away.
Now, that was right under
the nose of the referee.
And there's a bit of angst
going on here.
Portuguese players are
pushing Rooney.
And he's in trouble.
And Ronaldo straight away
was chirping at the referee
to do something.
I think it's Ricardo Carvalho
who's down.
It is.
And the referee has gone
to his pocket.
It's red! He's sent Rooney off.
It's a straight red.
John, the only thing he could send
him off for is standing on Carvalho.
England will be down to ten men.
Did he just wink there?
I think there's every chance that
Wayne Rooney could go back
to the Man United training ground
and stick one on Ronaldo.
Because he hasn't helped him...
I know...
I still have the same feeling.
I mean, I was... I was pretty angry
at the time,
so I can imagine how
Wayne Rooney felt.
It's impossible to know who
he was winking at
or what he was actually saying.
But of course it was taken as, "Job
done, I've got my pal sent off."
Was it that?
None of us really know.
Portugal are through and England,
despite heroics,
are out of the World Cup.
When he came back to England,
he was a villain, he was a cheat,
he'd ruined England's chances.
I was upset with the sending off
because I didn't see Wayne's
incident, and that's the truth,
but I saw many players trying
to get him sent off.
For weeks to come, it was...
Everyone was against Ronaldo.
And he kind of burnt a lot
of bridges in England, I suppose.
That's not right. I don't like
that either.
Think everybody hates him now,
don't they? Bang out of order, innit?
He's absolutely a bit of a winker.
He cheated us out of it completely.
He is going to get so much attitude
when he gets back to England.
I don't think Manchester will want
him back.
The now customary boos
greet the first touch
of the ball for Cristiano Ronaldo.
Is winking at your team-mates,
or your manager,
or whoever it was he was
winking at, actually a big deal?
No. Not really.
But because...
...the taste of defeat
is so sour and so bitter,
that the English fans lashed out.
Cacophony of boos every time
he picks up the ball.
"England!"
England is the song on
the lips of the Charlton fans.
Maybe people misunderstood
his attitude to the game.
And he loves playing,
he's a tough player.
Alex and his helpers, they decided
that the only way that they
could keep Ronaldo was to, I think,
tell him his salvation was here.
There's no doubt Alex Ferguson took
the paternal role with Ronaldo
to a really extreme degree
in some ways.
You sit down there, as you were.
He always looks after his players.
He understands, A, that that's
partly his role,
but more importantly that's
the best way to get the most
out of these young men
who are in his charge.
Ronaldo came as a young,
skinny kid at 17.
And, yeah, he had all these things
about him that were used to
criticise him about his diving and
all the rest of it, but, you know,
once the players got about
him on the training ground
and that, he was fantastic.
And then the most important
thing for a great player
is decision making.
He was tough. Ronaldo could play
for Millwall, Queen's Park Rangers,
Doncaster Rovers,
and score a hat-trick in a game.
I'm not sure Messi could do it.
Scholes' corner.
Ronaldo!
Instant impact!
Sir Alex Ferguson said to us we're
building a team now around the likes
of myself, Wayne Rooney, as well,
and Cristiano was the heartbeat.
Now it's Cristiano Ronaldo.
Saha waits inside the area.
Ronaldo goes alone!
And Ronaldo wins the match for
Manchester United!
87 minutes played.
It all came together.
Manchester United are the Barclays
Premiership champions of 2006-7.
That was the beginning
of a new era.
Cristiano Ronaldo,
double Footballer of the Year,
puts Manchester United within
touching distance of the title.
His style was about attacking, going
at people, and that fast movement,
you know, it's all about speed
and reaction.
But the most important thing for
him is, "I'm going to score a goal."
That's got to be the thing,
cos it's the most important
thing in football.
Scoring a goal is the most
important thing.
No matter what anybody says
about anything, you need to win,
only one way to win...
score a goal.
So that's always in his mind, "Score
goals. Score goals. Score goals."
Darren Fletcher has joined the
Stoke wall,
as Ronaldo shoots and scores!
Like most young kids,
I probably tried to hit
a couple of free kicks like him.
Here he comes.
Oh, it's two,
and it's absolutely magnificent!
I try to base my free kick
on Ronaldo.
Hit the ball by the valve
and it moves.
That's all you do.
Top corner, top bins.
Oh, yeah, I don't want
to hear that noise.
That squeaking.
Erm, yeah, this was...
I think I was probably about 14.
I'm a big Portsmouth fan,
so when he scored that free kick
at Old Trafford
against Portsmouth, I was there.
So I think I took
a lot of motivation from that,
and wanted to kind of replicate
what he does.
And, yeah, this was not quite
Ronaldo, but it was close.
The most important
thing about Cristiano Ronaldo,
that people don't often realise,
is how much time he spent
on his own working on his skills.
At Carrington, there was
a hill at the back,
just away from the training ground,
and he used to go behind the hill
and do his training on his own.
And I asked him about
that one time, you know.
And he said, "Well, you know,
there's nobody there,
"so I don't have to worry if
I do a skill wrong or anything.
"I can practise it and nobody's
watching me. So you're not worried."
You know, so he'd
practise everything...
you know, for a few days
or whatever...
and then he'd go
and take it into training matches.
Me every day, you know.
I'm no liar, you know.
Every Friday,
especially before the game
on the Saturday, he'd be probably
the one, eight times out of ten,
be the one to score
the winner in training.
Finish the game on a Ronaldo goal.
Next goal wins it,
and he'd invariably get the goal.
We felt we had the best players.
We felt we had the best
team for a couple of years.
But you need to do it in the
Champions League to be cemented
as a top, a great team.
It was only Giggsy and Scholesy who
played in that game
that had been part of the '99 team.
And so all of us others,
it was almost like a shadow over us
a little bit.
And for Cristiano, he wins that,
you've probably got a good
chance of winning the Ballon d'Or.
And that's what he wanted.
He wanted to be the best
player in the world.
Brown and Scholes
linking up down this near side.
Brown with a left-footed ball in.
Cristiano Ronaldo heads
Manchester United into the lead!
I don't think we've seen
too many transformations
like with Ronaldo. He was a teenage
sensation, yes, he was.
Did any of us really foresee
at that point
the levels of greatness that he
would achieve?
Probably not.
His time in Manchester United
was his... was his apprenticeship
in many ways.
Bravo, Cristiano.
Bravo.
People said to me, "How did you get
that skinny kid, you know,
"into that big muscle...
muscly guy in six months?"
But it took five and a half years
that we worked together
for him to produce what
he wanted to produce.
It takes time.
11 times champions.
It's another coronation
for the undisputed kings
of the Premier League,
Manchester United.
I spoke to him a lot about
staying, and he was like,
"I've dreamed about
playing for Real Madrid.
"I've done everything here.
I've had a great time.
"I love this club,
I love Man United,
"it'll always be part of me,
but it's a new chapter now."
When he left Manchester United
for Real Madrid,
he'd have seen something
completely different.
It was pretty clear
immediately that,
irrespective of Real Madrid
being the most historic club
in the world, the most
successful club in the world,
this was going to be the biggest
media event in their entire history.
It was going to dominate the
rolling news all over the world.
Take a look at this.
80,000 capacity
in the Bernabeu Stadium,
and to be honest, they're
almost at that capacity here...
In the stadium,
looking up and around,
what struck you was the number
of different nationalities.
There were people from Africa,
there were people from all over Asia.
It was a snapshot of precisely what
Real Madrid wanted to achieve
then and going forward in
marketing terms.
He is the best of the world.
More than Messi, more than Kaka,
more than anyone.
Uno, dos, tres.
Hala Madrid!
It's a massive move when you go to
one of the giants in Spain.
There's a difference
when you go there.
The expectancy levels are enormous,
particularly of the big stars.
The people who go to football
matches are your middle classes.
The people that go to the opera,
they're all members.
You know, they don't go
there for singsong and atmosphere
and a few beers,
they go there to watch football,
and you have to entertain them.
The great players love it.
One of the ways in which
special can become great is timing.
This arriving era of social media,
of games that bore players' images
and names
and were in every living
room around the civilised world,
when that spark became a fire...
because Ronaldo was good
looking and Hollywood-style
and brilliant at his sport, but also
cosmopolitan and aspirational...
when those two forces meet
head on, the explosion is positive.
There has been a massive
cultural change.
It used to be that your family
was associated with a club,
they supported a club,
and you supported the same team.
Now what happens is,
with the growth
of social media and gaming,
and the whole digital
landscape booming,
people's loyalties are now
with the players.
Ronaldo and Messi were both
born into a world and a time
in their career when the
social media landscape
was quickly changing.
The media landscape, in particular.
We saw the likes of Facebook
popping up, followed by Twitter.
Someone who may live in, say,
the Philippines
wouldn't necessarily be able to go
watch him in a match,
but they can re-enact
and become him through a game.
Younger football fans now have this
access that's almost unfiltered
and can be 24 hours a day.
He's constantly there,
constantly kind of leading that
evolution of how they interact
with their favourite players.
We will have a penalty shoot-out for
a place in the final of Euro 2012.
Portugal vs Spain, semifinals
of the European Championship.
Penalty shoot-out, massive rivals,
doesn't get much bigger than that.
Bruno Alves for Portugal.
Oh, and he's hit the bar!
Ronaldo might not even
get to take one.
Penalty shoot-outs are...
...horrendous in many ways.
Fabregas can do it for Spain.
And does!
Just!
It's Fabregas.
And Cristiano Ronaldo never
even got the chance
to look in the whites of
Casillas's eyes.
Portugal are beaten on penalties.
It's absolutely ridiculous.
Surely he's their best
penalty taker.
I just can't work out how
he has not taken a penalty.
To get the winning one,
that's what he wants.
That's the nature of the man.
The heartbeat of
everything he does
is about the team. And he knows that
something that comes hand in hand
with that, if he does produce the
goods, is the personal honours.
And he's not ashamed
in saying that.
He's not ashamed in wanting to win
the Ballon d'Or,
and tell people, and let them
understand that,
"Yeah, I want to win it. And if I
don't, I'm not happy."
What's not to like about that?
If you look back now at 2012,
he was at the club that he'd
yearned to play for,
he was already their dominant
footballer, yet he was suffering.
Barcelona were winning all
the popularity contests.
Lionel Messi was winning all
the Ballon d'Ors.
Lionel Messi.
And then when the UEFA Player
of the Year award went to
Andres Iniesta, he looked as
if he was chewing a wasp.
He patently didn't agree, and he
didn't give a... who knew about it.
What's the difference
from last season?
This year we win.
This is the difference.
And because we...
we've been better than them,
we play better than them,
so we deserve to win the league.
This is the only difference...
Messi's more about creation,
and doing beautiful things,
and joy of the game.
Ronaldo's an out-and-out
goal-scorer.
If this was a western, there'd
be a guy with a white hat...
that'd be Messi, of course...
and there'd be somebody
who rustles cattle
and is going to get shot
down in the final scene.
The black hat,
that would be Cristiano.
He feeds off negativity.
You can give him all the positives,
but he'll find that one negative
comment that will be the one that's
probably put on the door
of the hotel room he's staying in,
and then that's used as the fuel.
What really stood out for me,
when I first started work with him,
was he would do a lot of the stuff
that other players...
..other players at a high level
were just not willing to do.
He would make incredible sacrifices
that a lot of others
just didn't have the time for.
I saw the work that boy put in.
From the minute he woke up,
go in the gym, do his core,
go out onto the training ground
early, do his tricks.
Everything was geared for him
to becoming THE best
player in the world.
Not part of the pack.
To score 69 goals, you know,
in a calendar year, 2013,
is just phenomenal.
When I was playing,
or certainly when I started,
if you got one in two then you were
a brilliant player.
And that's what all
forwards tried to do.
But his numbers are crazy.
Left foot, right foot, outside the
box, inside the box, with his head.
Goals where you just think, "How?
"How has he even got
that strike away?"
Cristiano Ronaldo!
Just a phenomenal
goal-scoring machine.
Messi was best before,
but now it's Ronaldo time.
Ronaldo!
Ronaldo!
The cumulus of the
off-the-pitch marketing
and his on-pitch exploits gave him
that 2013 Ballon d'Or.
Madrid winning La Decima is one
of the great stories of football.
In the 2014 Champions League final,
I'm looking out the tunnel, and I
can see the Champions League trophy
is... is sitting on the podium.
And when I got that view,
it took my breath away,
and I actually physically went...
Took a deep breath like that.
And Cristiano had obviously heard
that, and he just turned
and looked over his shoulder,
and went, "Paul, don't worry."
It was a nervy game.
And the fact that we equalised on
93 minutes just showed how close
it was to going the other way.
Ronaldo shrugs off his shirt
and Atletico Madrid
have lost here in Lisbon.
Real triumphant.
People are celebrating
in the dressing room,
the trophy's getting passed around,
champagne's popping,
people are drinking beers, like, the
atmosphere's just... just incredible.
And then I saw
a small group of players...
Marcelo, Pepe, and Cristiano.
I had to ask, you know, Cristiano,
"What are you talking about?"
And he said,
"We're talking about next year.
"We have to go and win it again."
And I just thought, "Wow."
Ronaldo's father died in 2005,
when Ronaldo was still just 20.
He had suffered from
alcoholism for quite a while
and he suffered from liver failure.
Dolores, Cristiano Ronaldo's mum,
is a phenomenon.
She didn't just show him love
and protect him
and give him the freedom
to move to Lisbon aged 12,
she demonstrated to him
that survival, that thriving,
that being the best version
of yourself is relentless...
morning, noon, and night.
My dream is always
to have a son young.
So, I have Cristiano,
so I'm so proud for that.
When the people ask me the question
if Cristiano changed my life,
of course.
Because, you know,
it's another member in the family.
It's something coming
from your blood, I'm so happy.
In another way, I'm happy because
he see his daddy still play football,
still win things, still fit,
still good, still score goals.
And this is, for me,
it's always my dream.
Ronaldo at Euro 2016
was a fascinating figure.
He knew that that team was good,
but he knew he also had to carry
that team in many ways.
1-1 the final score.
Penalty kicks it is.
It was a moment where you kind of
felt Ronaldo's not just conducting
his team-mates here, he's conducting
everybody watching this.
Cristiano Ronaldo, having on
previous occasions held himself back
to take what could be
the decisive winning penalty,
has put himself forward here to try
and put his side on the road
to victory by putting the
first one in.
Ronaldo was needed,
he had to step forward.
Deafening whistles in his ears.
Didn't trouble Ronaldo.
Slamming the ball home.
I suppose the question in the group
stage was
is this functional leadership?
Is this going to work out?
Is Ronaldo playing out some
kind of personal psycho-drama
here which is going to have a
negative effect on his team?
And he just about trod the right
side of that line
all the way through.
Looped across and Ronaldo's met it!
What a leap!
What a jump that was from CR7.
It will be Portugal in Paris
on Sunday.
Maybe this is their - and their
crown prince Cristiano's - year.
Bravo.
APPLAUSE
Everyone thinking
we already lost the game.
Echoes of 1998 -
France in the final at the
Stade de France
facing a team of Portuguese
speakers whose star is Ronaldo.
One of the key themes
about Cristiano Ronaldo
is that he's always thought
that he can't be beaten.
Payet in very strongly.
Ronaldo's writhing.
Looks hurt.
The biggest criticism of him
is for these sort of moments
when the drama takes over.
He was on the pitch,
then he was off the pitch.
Ronaldo's gone down.
He's coming off.
There are going to be tears.
This was his stage.
This is not how it was supposed to
end in France this summer
for Cristiano Ronaldo.
With him it's always...
You know, it's about him.
He was shouting to every name,
he was co-ordinate the players,
he was telling,
giving some information.
I think almost everyone
felt his presence on the touchline.
Even during the game, there must've
been 500 cuts
to Ronaldo on the bench.
It was almost like he was the
star player,
even though he wasn't performing.
He wants to be outright the best.
And he knows if he wins the Euros
with his national team,
has Messi won anything
with... with Argentina?
So it puts him...
It's another feather in his cap.
Eder.
Eder's shot!
Super strike!
Eder smashes Portugal
onto the verge of glory!
France were all set up to
win that game.
It was France's final,
it was their tournament.
But there was another force
acting on that team
that went beyond being the
host nation.
Look how excited
Cristiano Ronaldo is.
All that he's achieved, all that
wealth that he's accumulated,
but he's never done this.
Eder jumps.
Eder celebrates because
he's the man that has won
the European Championship
for Portugal!
It has been a monumental effort...
...by Cristiano Ronaldo's team.
People at times over the years
might have thought
he was pretty selfish
in terms of him...
The goals that he scored,
the desire that he had.
But I think when you look
at him in that final,
the way he was trying
to drive his team,
his country forward
from the touchline,
I think that told you everything,
how much he wanted to win.
The best players can evolve
and change their game to suit them
for where they are at certain
points of their career.
Ronaldo!
He's obviously not going to
be as quick and explosive
as he was when he was 21, 22, 23.
So he's playing the game to
be as effective as he can
in the right areas of the pitch.
Juventus had, on a sporting level,
achieved magnificent success.
They had built a team that had
reached two Champions League finals.
Yet there was a lot of criticism
aimed at Juventus
for not having managed to capture
the American market,
the Asian market in much the way
that, say, Milan did.
What they needed was
the global money-maker,
a way of being recognised
around the world.
Obviously quite a large
part of their motivation
was that this would be a great
commercial signing,
it'd be great for the club's name,
for the club's brand.
Unfortunately this was almost
immediately challenged.
In Ronaldo's first season
at Juventus,
news broke that Las Vegas police
had reopened an investigation
into an allegation by a woman called
Kathryn Mayorga, an American woman,
who had alleged that Ronaldo
had raped her in 2009.
Kathryn Mayorga gave an interview
in 2018 with the German magazine
Der Spiegel about her own
encounter with Ronaldo,
and the fact she had decided to go
public in the wake of the Me Too
allegations and the slightly
changed environment
around these kind of stories.
Mayorga had reportedly reached
an out-of-court settlement
with Ronaldo in 2010.
There was a criminal investigation
in 2018, but no proceedings
were taken as there was insufficient
evidence to go any further.
Ronaldo has always
maintained his innocence,
but he has accepted the existence
of the out-of-court settlement.
He then put out a tweet that stated
a complete denial
of the allegations.
Goal!
Ronaldo's headfirst into anything
that's going to make him
a better player.
In modern-day football,
he's changed it massively cos he's
probably been the top player
that's really delved into sports
science and prolonging his career.
Yeah, listen, I think he's part
of a group of sports people of our
generation who are playing well
into their 30s at the top level still...
Serena Williams,
Roger Federer, Nadal,
LeBron, Messi, obviously,
Tom Brady.
They make sacrifices
that other don't,
and they have that obsession that
lives and breathes inside of them
that is just...
That fire never goes out.
Ronaldo!
The numbers that he's managed to
put on the board are mind-blowing.
You know, to go past Pele, but to do
it in, you know, European football,
it's just incredible.
Individual accolades,
team awards, trophies,
his goal-scoring record...
you have to say that he's at
genius level as a footballer.
Cristiano Ronaldo!
He's probably the greatest
footballer that ever lived.
Ronaldo's met it!
What a jump that was from CR7.
When I speak to Cristiano, even now,
you just listen to him speak
and there's a little bit of
anger in there even still
that helps him get out on the pitch
and produce the moments
that he's still producing.
He doesn't need it, but he'll find
something that switches that switch,
that lights that fire
to go out again.
I don't care what the people
are thinking, what they say.
In my mind, I'm always the best.
All this happen because a reason.
The reason is I'm
unbelievable inside the pitch.
This is why the people have
so much interest in me.
The numbers say everything.
Hm.
The allure of Ronaldo...
It's the man that's got it all.
How many other men on the planet
would you say that he's
got everything?
Do you know what I mean?
You can go through the list of
things that you...
You know what I'm talking about.
The best footballer...
the most goals...
played at the biggest clubs...
won the biggest titles...
...got a beautiful family.
Everyone would want to
be in that man's shoes.
If you're growing up as a kid
and you say, "I want..."
He'd be one of your top picks.
18-year-old Cristiano Ronaldo,
wearing 7,
David Beckham's old shirt.
He is twinkle-toed and skilful, and
full of tricks and full of magic.
That ability to...
...repeat the stuff that others
aren't willing to do.
That's what his real talent is.
The fans, they get crazy,
they get mad,
they don't know how to react
when they get close to him.
They try to jump,
they try to... to touch him,
to have a one-second opportunity
to be close, or to sign something.
Love him or loathe him,
Manchester United's Ronaldo
is now the most expensive
footballer in the world.
He doesn't care
what you think of him.
He doesn't care how
you feel about his success.
He will preen and
he won't apologise.
He'll strut around saying,
"I've won."
You know, "This is me."
And people don't always like this.
Maybe some ones
don't like me, but...
Because maybe I'm too good.
He's a winner.
For me, getting to the top was
predominantly about work ethic,
mentality, wanting to be
the best, hating losing,
always wanting to win, which is
the things that I see in him.
We've been better than them,
we've played better than them,
so we deserve to win the league.
He will look you straight in the eye
and he will tell you he's the best.
But at the same time, he will be
so keen to emphasise just how
much hard work went
in to him being the best.
He's just different. He's made
different, built differently.
Ronaldo!
Goal, goal, goal!
Golazo!
Goal, goal, goal, goal, goal!
Cristiano Ronaldo!
What a strike!
Now it's Ronaldo time.
Ronaldo!
He creates moments that...
...hardly anybody else can.
After much speculation
on a possible transfer...
One of the world's greatest ever...
Cristiano Ronaldo...
To join Juventus in a deal worth...
A reported 100 million.
Yeah, I have to say...
...yes, I was surprised.
When the first... When the news
first started to rumble, you think,
"That's probably just a rumour."
The headlines in Italy on the day of
his arrival were just crazy in love.
"He Arrives" was the headline of
the most famous sports newspaper.
This man, this figure, the myth,
legend, the icon has arrived.
Cristiano Ronaldo
est officiellement...
Oh, my God, you guys, like,
this is going to be insane.
It was Ronaldo.
What Juventus get when
they sign Cristiano Ronaldo
is the reigning Ballon d'Or holder,
the best player in the world.
He's 33.
You go, "100 million? Really?"
But he's still incredibly fit,
looks after himself properly.
Juve effectively get
the world's biggest star.
Madeira is special.
Not just because I was born there,
but all my family's there.
My friends and uncles,
everyone is there,
and this is why it's a
special island for me.
Cristiano Ronaldo documentary,
Mr Fernao, take one.
Cristiano Ronaldo!
We'd just missed out on signing
Ronaldinho. We were all excited
and we was away thinking
we're going to get Ronaldinho.
Then he went and
signed for Barcelona,
and everyone was,
like, a bit deflated.
Don't get Ronaldinho. Then we play
Sporting, and we're in the tunnel,
and then all of a sudden you start
getting whispers
they've got a kid called Ronaldo,
meant to be half decent,
a young kid meant
to be really good.
I don't think anything of it.
Then the game starts,
and then you look at each other,
and you're like...
..."OK."
He's doing mad stuff,
he's embarrassing
a couple of our players.
It was a bit of a sandpit,
the pitch, to be fair,
but he was dancing on it
like it was a normal pitch.
Then I remember at half-time
when I was going to the toilet,
I think with Nicky Butt
and Scholesy,
I think it might have been, and we
were all standing there, saying,
"Oh, my God,
we've got to sign him."
And then the game finished,
and we were all sat on
the coach after, waiting.
Everyone's sitting there going,
"We've been here waiting an hour.
"Like, what's going...? We've got
to get to the airport." Blah-blah.
Then it starts to...
The noise starts travelling back
through the coach that Mr Gill,
who was the CEO at the time,
and the manager are in there,
and they've got Cristiano
in a vice-like lock, waiting, so he
can't leave the stadium
until he signs and agrees to come
to United.
So I think that was where
the deal was agreed,
and then the rest is history.
The interesting thing about Ronaldo
is there was scepticism
even before he'd played a game.
That was simply the way where
you've signed a Portuguese teenager.
And that was the kind of culture
of English football at the time.
...replacing the summer departures.
And according to their manager,
Cristiano Ronaldo and Kleberson
are the men to bring Manchester
United success among Europe's elite.
He seems to get these players,
and they sit around for months
and months and months on end,
and then we struggle early on in the
season and he starts to play them.
Or he gets upset and
he starts to sell them.
It doesn't make any sense.
I don't know what he's doing
this season, but we'll see.
He just looked happy to be there.
He's like a kid in a sweet shop.
And you could see he just wanted to
get working and that was it.
He's two-footed, he's quick,
he's brave, he's...
As you say, he's tall,
he's good in the air.
He can play either side,
wide right or wide left.
He could play through the middle.
We know this having seen him
over the last two years.
So...
...there's enormous talent there.
He arrived the gawky,
not very worldly-wise Bambi.
His skin still bore the evidence
that he was pretty young.
His teeth weren't Hollywood.
Now just to the cameras, please.
And every dressing room,
particularly that
Manchester United dressing room,
is a school of hard knocks.
My office was always in the gym.
So I was always
available for anybody
whenever they wanted to talk.
Because the talking and the
listening is really what gets you
used to what they're saying
and why they're saying it
and how to actually work with them.
Power development is basically
looking at all the different
things that the brain
has to focus on.
It's listening to the player
and finding out
what they need in their minds
that's the key, the important key.
It's that mind of the person.
It's not the body at all,
it's the brain.
It's the athlete
who trains the body.
We've got to train the brains
what you need to do with your body.
You know, how we do that.
And it's not just on the physical
side, it's on the mental side,
it's on the emotional side,
it's on the spiritual side.
I'm at Carrington
and I'm in my chair, in the gym,
and this young lad turns up
early in the morning.
He said, "I've heard about you and
I know that you do a lot of work
"individually with
a lot of the players."
And he said, "I want to be
the best player in the world."
18-year-old Cristiano Ronaldo,
wearing 7,
David Beckham's old shirt,
comes on for Nicky Butt.
And he is twinkle-toed and skilful,
and full of tricks
and full of magic.
He came on essentially sort
of billed as David Beckham's
long-term replacement,
and by the end of the game had just
completely eradicated that
hanging spectre.
He was... He was sensational
in that first game.
Cristiano Ronaldo, who absolutely
roasted United in a friendly
recently for Sporting Lisbon, has
caused pandemonium since he came on.
But there was a kind of rowing
back after that, as there always
is with young players,
and he did take a while to adapt.
In his first season,
he used to go down too early.
What it did,
particularly away from home,
it turned the crowd
against him and the team.
And now Ronaldo
trying to get through.
And Ronaldo will be
cautioned here for taking a dive.
No contact at all.
When he first signed, he was
about skills, about entertaining,
about being, like, the guy in the
crowd, to entertain the crowd,
rather than end product.
Everybody's talking
about the end product
and that's what he's got
to deliver. I mean, the tricks
and the party pieces
are all very well,
but what you've got to define is
whether you want to play with him
or against him,
as I said at half-time.
And still the jury would be out.
Ronaldo in the early years
was kind of looked upon
as unbelievably talented but a
little bit of a show pony at times.
And he used to do, obviously,
a massive amount of stepovers.
Ronaldo.
Sometimes it's one
stepover too many.
Cross the ball.
There's only so many
stepovers you can do.
Someone like Ruud van Nistelrooy,
the top goal-scorer at the club,
is waiting for the ball
to be crossed in the box.
If you want to affect the game
and be deemed a superstar,
you've got to cross the ball.
He got kicked every single day.
Because of his skill,
because of the fact
that he liked to commit one v one,
because of his... the style
in which he played, the defenders
would kick him every single day.
And every time he got kicked,
he never moaned.
The best and the biggest
learning curves, I think,
he got from his team-mates.
Just say, "I enjoy game.
I dribble very well."
"I enjoy game."
Right, guys, when you're ready.
Cristiano, are you feeling more
and more confident with each game?
No understand.
Are you confident?
No understand. Sorry.
Gary, he's looking confident
anyway, Gary.
Yeah, he is confident.
He's... Confident?
Here, you're Man of the Match,
well done.
You go.
His first season, he was good.
The second season, he was beginning
to score goals, win matches,
play in all the biggest games,
win trophies.
And this was his moment.
It was his moment in his home
country, it was his moment
when the whole world was watching.
I always thought that
that's the arena,
that's the moment that he craved
for and dreamt of all his life.
You have to remember that
even before that tournament,
everyone was talking
about Wayne Rooney.
Ronaldo was another
very promising footballer.
It was during that tournament he
really emerged as this phenomenon.
And by the time he got to
the final,
you realised that there
was something astonishing in this
Portugal team and
a really grand talent.
Everyone calls me Lucy, but my
name's Lucia Roberta Tough Bronze.
My mum's obviously English,
and my dad's fully Portuguese,
born and raised there.
I had the full Portugal kit...
green shorts, the socks, everything.
I'd be out in the streets
playing in this kit.
Everyone thought
that would be our Euro,
we were playing beautiful football,
probably the easiest team
to get in the final,
and they surprised us.
The Greek supporters at that end
are getting very,
very excited now.
Dellas jumping with the goalkeeper.
And scoring!
Charisteas is the player
that got the touch.
It was almost meant to be
for Portugal and for Ronaldo
and for the country, and then
it was that underdog story,
which I think anybody who didn't
have an association with Portugal
probably absolutely loved it.
All eyes now will be on Markus
Merk, the dentist from Hamburg.
And he blows!
And the unbelievable,
the unfathomable,
and the almost impossible
has happened.
Greece have won Euro 2004.
Portuguese faces tell the story.
For most footballers, just
reaching the final and emerging
as a world star at that tournament
would've been a huge achievement.
But Ronaldo being a
psychopathically driven winner,
it obviously came as a huge
personal blow not to go on
and just win the thing.
The biggest and best
players in any industry,
when you don't win or you don't get
something over the line, then it's
time to reflect and analyse, and
then go back to the drawing board.
And I think that's
what he 100% done.
He came back
with a different focus.
And he weren't going to
be derailed by one failure.
It's crazy, cos we used to
play table tennis quite a lot,
and if I won, he wouldn't want
to stop. He'd want to go again.
But you get some people that,
when they lose, they shy away.
They think, "That's enough for me,"
and don't really come back.
So you see a lot of traits
in someone in even little instances
like that, and he's not
someone who gives up.
This is Cristiano Ronaldo.
Plenty of red shirts forward.
Oh, what a special goal!
Cristiano came in
and quickly embedded
himself in the DNA of the club.
He had experienced players
around him who knew how to win,
and I think he took all
that on board.
By the time the 2006 World Cup
came around,
Ronaldo was an established
world star.
We knew how good he was.
He hadn't quite moved yet to
that higher plane,
and that would come in the
tournament and just after it.
It was an England side
we expected to do well.
Rooney, Ronaldo were team-mates.
England had some injuries,
but Rooney would be playing up
front on his own.
And he was still the golden child,
he was still considered
the most talented, the most
promising young player in Europe.
He was probably ahead of Ronaldo
at that point.
And you had a feeling
even on the day of the match
that something was going to happen
here and that this game was going
to be played out between
these two personalities.
Look at Rooney there,
battling away.
Now, that was right under
the nose of the referee.
And there's a bit of angst
going on here.
Portuguese players are
pushing Rooney.
And he's in trouble.
And Ronaldo straight away
was chirping at the referee
to do something.
I think it's Ricardo Carvalho
who's down.
It is.
And the referee has gone
to his pocket.
It's red! He's sent Rooney off.
It's a straight red.
John, the only thing he could send
him off for is standing on Carvalho.
England will be down to ten men.
Did he just wink there?
I think there's every chance that
Wayne Rooney could go back
to the Man United training ground
and stick one on Ronaldo.
Because he hasn't helped him...
I know...
I still have the same feeling.
I mean, I was... I was pretty angry
at the time,
so I can imagine how
Wayne Rooney felt.
It's impossible to know who
he was winking at
or what he was actually saying.
But of course it was taken as, "Job
done, I've got my pal sent off."
Was it that?
None of us really know.
Portugal are through and England,
despite heroics,
are out of the World Cup.
When he came back to England,
he was a villain, he was a cheat,
he'd ruined England's chances.
I was upset with the sending off
because I didn't see Wayne's
incident, and that's the truth,
but I saw many players trying
to get him sent off.
For weeks to come, it was...
Everyone was against Ronaldo.
And he kind of burnt a lot
of bridges in England, I suppose.
That's not right. I don't like
that either.
Think everybody hates him now,
don't they? Bang out of order, innit?
He's absolutely a bit of a winker.
He cheated us out of it completely.
He is going to get so much attitude
when he gets back to England.
I don't think Manchester will want
him back.
The now customary boos
greet the first touch
of the ball for Cristiano Ronaldo.
Is winking at your team-mates,
or your manager,
or whoever it was he was
winking at, actually a big deal?
No. Not really.
But because...
...the taste of defeat
is so sour and so bitter,
that the English fans lashed out.
Cacophony of boos every time
he picks up the ball.
"England!"
England is the song on
the lips of the Charlton fans.
Maybe people misunderstood
his attitude to the game.
And he loves playing,
he's a tough player.
Alex and his helpers, they decided
that the only way that they
could keep Ronaldo was to, I think,
tell him his salvation was here.
There's no doubt Alex Ferguson took
the paternal role with Ronaldo
to a really extreme degree
in some ways.
You sit down there, as you were.
He always looks after his players.
He understands, A, that that's
partly his role,
but more importantly that's
the best way to get the most
out of these young men
who are in his charge.
Ronaldo came as a young,
skinny kid at 17.
And, yeah, he had all these things
about him that were used to
criticise him about his diving and
all the rest of it, but, you know,
once the players got about
him on the training ground
and that, he was fantastic.
And then the most important
thing for a great player
is decision making.
He was tough. Ronaldo could play
for Millwall, Queen's Park Rangers,
Doncaster Rovers,
and score a hat-trick in a game.
I'm not sure Messi could do it.
Scholes' corner.
Ronaldo!
Instant impact!
Sir Alex Ferguson said to us we're
building a team now around the likes
of myself, Wayne Rooney, as well,
and Cristiano was the heartbeat.
Now it's Cristiano Ronaldo.
Saha waits inside the area.
Ronaldo goes alone!
And Ronaldo wins the match for
Manchester United!
87 minutes played.
It all came together.
Manchester United are the Barclays
Premiership champions of 2006-7.
That was the beginning
of a new era.
Cristiano Ronaldo,
double Footballer of the Year,
puts Manchester United within
touching distance of the title.
His style was about attacking, going
at people, and that fast movement,
you know, it's all about speed
and reaction.
But the most important thing for
him is, "I'm going to score a goal."
That's got to be the thing,
cos it's the most important
thing in football.
Scoring a goal is the most
important thing.
No matter what anybody says
about anything, you need to win,
only one way to win...
score a goal.
So that's always in his mind, "Score
goals. Score goals. Score goals."
Darren Fletcher has joined the
Stoke wall,
as Ronaldo shoots and scores!
Like most young kids,
I probably tried to hit
a couple of free kicks like him.
Here he comes.
Oh, it's two,
and it's absolutely magnificent!
I try to base my free kick
on Ronaldo.
Hit the ball by the valve
and it moves.
That's all you do.
Top corner, top bins.
Oh, yeah, I don't want
to hear that noise.
That squeaking.
Erm, yeah, this was...
I think I was probably about 14.
I'm a big Portsmouth fan,
so when he scored that free kick
at Old Trafford
against Portsmouth, I was there.
So I think I took
a lot of motivation from that,
and wanted to kind of replicate
what he does.
And, yeah, this was not quite
Ronaldo, but it was close.
The most important
thing about Cristiano Ronaldo,
that people don't often realise,
is how much time he spent
on his own working on his skills.
At Carrington, there was
a hill at the back,
just away from the training ground,
and he used to go behind the hill
and do his training on his own.
And I asked him about
that one time, you know.
And he said, "Well, you know,
there's nobody there,
"so I don't have to worry if
I do a skill wrong or anything.
"I can practise it and nobody's
watching me. So you're not worried."
You know, so he'd
practise everything...
you know, for a few days
or whatever...
and then he'd go
and take it into training matches.
Me every day, you know.
I'm no liar, you know.
Every Friday,
especially before the game
on the Saturday, he'd be probably
the one, eight times out of ten,
be the one to score
the winner in training.
Finish the game on a Ronaldo goal.
Next goal wins it,
and he'd invariably get the goal.
We felt we had the best players.
We felt we had the best
team for a couple of years.
But you need to do it in the
Champions League to be cemented
as a top, a great team.
It was only Giggsy and Scholesy who
played in that game
that had been part of the '99 team.
And so all of us others,
it was almost like a shadow over us
a little bit.
And for Cristiano, he wins that,
you've probably got a good
chance of winning the Ballon d'Or.
And that's what he wanted.
He wanted to be the best
player in the world.
Brown and Scholes
linking up down this near side.
Brown with a left-footed ball in.
Cristiano Ronaldo heads
Manchester United into the lead!
I don't think we've seen
too many transformations
like with Ronaldo. He was a teenage
sensation, yes, he was.
Did any of us really foresee
at that point
the levels of greatness that he
would achieve?
Probably not.
His time in Manchester United
was his... was his apprenticeship
in many ways.
Bravo, Cristiano.
Bravo.
People said to me, "How did you get
that skinny kid, you know,
"into that big muscle...
muscly guy in six months?"
But it took five and a half years
that we worked together
for him to produce what
he wanted to produce.
It takes time.
11 times champions.
It's another coronation
for the undisputed kings
of the Premier League,
Manchester United.
I spoke to him a lot about
staying, and he was like,
"I've dreamed about
playing for Real Madrid.
"I've done everything here.
I've had a great time.
"I love this club,
I love Man United,
"it'll always be part of me,
but it's a new chapter now."
When he left Manchester United
for Real Madrid,
he'd have seen something
completely different.
It was pretty clear
immediately that,
irrespective of Real Madrid
being the most historic club
in the world, the most
successful club in the world,
this was going to be the biggest
media event in their entire history.
It was going to dominate the
rolling news all over the world.
Take a look at this.
80,000 capacity
in the Bernabeu Stadium,
and to be honest, they're
almost at that capacity here...
In the stadium,
looking up and around,
what struck you was the number
of different nationalities.
There were people from Africa,
there were people from all over Asia.
It was a snapshot of precisely what
Real Madrid wanted to achieve
then and going forward in
marketing terms.
He is the best of the world.
More than Messi, more than Kaka,
more than anyone.
Uno, dos, tres.
Hala Madrid!
It's a massive move when you go to
one of the giants in Spain.
There's a difference
when you go there.
The expectancy levels are enormous,
particularly of the big stars.
The people who go to football
matches are your middle classes.
The people that go to the opera,
they're all members.
You know, they don't go
there for singsong and atmosphere
and a few beers,
they go there to watch football,
and you have to entertain them.
The great players love it.
One of the ways in which
special can become great is timing.
This arriving era of social media,
of games that bore players' images
and names
and were in every living
room around the civilised world,
when that spark became a fire...
because Ronaldo was good
looking and Hollywood-style
and brilliant at his sport, but also
cosmopolitan and aspirational...
when those two forces meet
head on, the explosion is positive.
There has been a massive
cultural change.
It used to be that your family
was associated with a club,
they supported a club,
and you supported the same team.
Now what happens is,
with the growth
of social media and gaming,
and the whole digital
landscape booming,
people's loyalties are now
with the players.
Ronaldo and Messi were both
born into a world and a time
in their career when the
social media landscape
was quickly changing.
The media landscape, in particular.
We saw the likes of Facebook
popping up, followed by Twitter.
Someone who may live in, say,
the Philippines
wouldn't necessarily be able to go
watch him in a match,
but they can re-enact
and become him through a game.
Younger football fans now have this
access that's almost unfiltered
and can be 24 hours a day.
He's constantly there,
constantly kind of leading that
evolution of how they interact
with their favourite players.
We will have a penalty shoot-out for
a place in the final of Euro 2012.
Portugal vs Spain, semifinals
of the European Championship.
Penalty shoot-out, massive rivals,
doesn't get much bigger than that.
Bruno Alves for Portugal.
Oh, and he's hit the bar!
Ronaldo might not even
get to take one.
Penalty shoot-outs are...
...horrendous in many ways.
Fabregas can do it for Spain.
And does!
Just!
It's Fabregas.
And Cristiano Ronaldo never
even got the chance
to look in the whites of
Casillas's eyes.
Portugal are beaten on penalties.
It's absolutely ridiculous.
Surely he's their best
penalty taker.
I just can't work out how
he has not taken a penalty.
To get the winning one,
that's what he wants.
That's the nature of the man.
The heartbeat of
everything he does
is about the team. And he knows that
something that comes hand in hand
with that, if he does produce the
goods, is the personal honours.
And he's not ashamed
in saying that.
He's not ashamed in wanting to win
the Ballon d'Or,
and tell people, and let them
understand that,
"Yeah, I want to win it. And if I
don't, I'm not happy."
What's not to like about that?
If you look back now at 2012,
he was at the club that he'd
yearned to play for,
he was already their dominant
footballer, yet he was suffering.
Barcelona were winning all
the popularity contests.
Lionel Messi was winning all
the Ballon d'Ors.
Lionel Messi.
And then when the UEFA Player
of the Year award went to
Andres Iniesta, he looked as
if he was chewing a wasp.
He patently didn't agree, and he
didn't give a... who knew about it.
What's the difference
from last season?
This year we win.
This is the difference.
And because we...
we've been better than them,
we play better than them,
so we deserve to win the league.
This is the only difference...
Messi's more about creation,
and doing beautiful things,
and joy of the game.
Ronaldo's an out-and-out
goal-scorer.
If this was a western, there'd
be a guy with a white hat...
that'd be Messi, of course...
and there'd be somebody
who rustles cattle
and is going to get shot
down in the final scene.
The black hat,
that would be Cristiano.
He feeds off negativity.
You can give him all the positives,
but he'll find that one negative
comment that will be the one that's
probably put on the door
of the hotel room he's staying in,
and then that's used as the fuel.
What really stood out for me,
when I first started work with him,
was he would do a lot of the stuff
that other players...
..other players at a high level
were just not willing to do.
He would make incredible sacrifices
that a lot of others
just didn't have the time for.
I saw the work that boy put in.
From the minute he woke up,
go in the gym, do his core,
go out onto the training ground
early, do his tricks.
Everything was geared for him
to becoming THE best
player in the world.
Not part of the pack.
To score 69 goals, you know,
in a calendar year, 2013,
is just phenomenal.
When I was playing,
or certainly when I started,
if you got one in two then you were
a brilliant player.
And that's what all
forwards tried to do.
But his numbers are crazy.
Left foot, right foot, outside the
box, inside the box, with his head.
Goals where you just think, "How?
"How has he even got
that strike away?"
Cristiano Ronaldo!
Just a phenomenal
goal-scoring machine.
Messi was best before,
but now it's Ronaldo time.
Ronaldo!
Ronaldo!
The cumulus of the
off-the-pitch marketing
and his on-pitch exploits gave him
that 2013 Ballon d'Or.
Madrid winning La Decima is one
of the great stories of football.
In the 2014 Champions League final,
I'm looking out the tunnel, and I
can see the Champions League trophy
is... is sitting on the podium.
And when I got that view,
it took my breath away,
and I actually physically went...
Took a deep breath like that.
And Cristiano had obviously heard
that, and he just turned
and looked over his shoulder,
and went, "Paul, don't worry."
It was a nervy game.
And the fact that we equalised on
93 minutes just showed how close
it was to going the other way.
Ronaldo shrugs off his shirt
and Atletico Madrid
have lost here in Lisbon.
Real triumphant.
People are celebrating
in the dressing room,
the trophy's getting passed around,
champagne's popping,
people are drinking beers, like, the
atmosphere's just... just incredible.
And then I saw
a small group of players...
Marcelo, Pepe, and Cristiano.
I had to ask, you know, Cristiano,
"What are you talking about?"
And he said,
"We're talking about next year.
"We have to go and win it again."
And I just thought, "Wow."
Ronaldo's father died in 2005,
when Ronaldo was still just 20.
He had suffered from
alcoholism for quite a while
and he suffered from liver failure.
Dolores, Cristiano Ronaldo's mum,
is a phenomenon.
She didn't just show him love
and protect him
and give him the freedom
to move to Lisbon aged 12,
she demonstrated to him
that survival, that thriving,
that being the best version
of yourself is relentless...
morning, noon, and night.
My dream is always
to have a son young.
So, I have Cristiano,
so I'm so proud for that.
When the people ask me the question
if Cristiano changed my life,
of course.
Because, you know,
it's another member in the family.
It's something coming
from your blood, I'm so happy.
In another way, I'm happy because
he see his daddy still play football,
still win things, still fit,
still good, still score goals.
And this is, for me,
it's always my dream.
Ronaldo at Euro 2016
was a fascinating figure.
He knew that that team was good,
but he knew he also had to carry
that team in many ways.
1-1 the final score.
Penalty kicks it is.
It was a moment where you kind of
felt Ronaldo's not just conducting
his team-mates here, he's conducting
everybody watching this.
Cristiano Ronaldo, having on
previous occasions held himself back
to take what could be
the decisive winning penalty,
has put himself forward here to try
and put his side on the road
to victory by putting the
first one in.
Ronaldo was needed,
he had to step forward.
Deafening whistles in his ears.
Didn't trouble Ronaldo.
Slamming the ball home.
I suppose the question in the group
stage was
is this functional leadership?
Is this going to work out?
Is Ronaldo playing out some
kind of personal psycho-drama
here which is going to have a
negative effect on his team?
And he just about trod the right
side of that line
all the way through.
Looped across and Ronaldo's met it!
What a leap!
What a jump that was from CR7.
It will be Portugal in Paris
on Sunday.
Maybe this is their - and their
crown prince Cristiano's - year.
Bravo.
APPLAUSE
Everyone thinking
we already lost the game.
Echoes of 1998 -
France in the final at the
Stade de France
facing a team of Portuguese
speakers whose star is Ronaldo.
One of the key themes
about Cristiano Ronaldo
is that he's always thought
that he can't be beaten.
Payet in very strongly.
Ronaldo's writhing.
Looks hurt.
The biggest criticism of him
is for these sort of moments
when the drama takes over.
He was on the pitch,
then he was off the pitch.
Ronaldo's gone down.
He's coming off.
There are going to be tears.
This was his stage.
This is not how it was supposed to
end in France this summer
for Cristiano Ronaldo.
With him it's always...
You know, it's about him.
He was shouting to every name,
he was co-ordinate the players,
he was telling,
giving some information.
I think almost everyone
felt his presence on the touchline.
Even during the game, there must've
been 500 cuts
to Ronaldo on the bench.
It was almost like he was the
star player,
even though he wasn't performing.
He wants to be outright the best.
And he knows if he wins the Euros
with his national team,
has Messi won anything
with... with Argentina?
So it puts him...
It's another feather in his cap.
Eder.
Eder's shot!
Super strike!
Eder smashes Portugal
onto the verge of glory!
France were all set up to
win that game.
It was France's final,
it was their tournament.
But there was another force
acting on that team
that went beyond being the
host nation.
Look how excited
Cristiano Ronaldo is.
All that he's achieved, all that
wealth that he's accumulated,
but he's never done this.
Eder jumps.
Eder celebrates because
he's the man that has won
the European Championship
for Portugal!
It has been a monumental effort...
...by Cristiano Ronaldo's team.
People at times over the years
might have thought
he was pretty selfish
in terms of him...
The goals that he scored,
the desire that he had.
But I think when you look
at him in that final,
the way he was trying
to drive his team,
his country forward
from the touchline,
I think that told you everything,
how much he wanted to win.
The best players can evolve
and change their game to suit them
for where they are at certain
points of their career.
Ronaldo!
He's obviously not going to
be as quick and explosive
as he was when he was 21, 22, 23.
So he's playing the game to
be as effective as he can
in the right areas of the pitch.
Juventus had, on a sporting level,
achieved magnificent success.
They had built a team that had
reached two Champions League finals.
Yet there was a lot of criticism
aimed at Juventus
for not having managed to capture
the American market,
the Asian market in much the way
that, say, Milan did.
What they needed was
the global money-maker,
a way of being recognised
around the world.
Obviously quite a large
part of their motivation
was that this would be a great
commercial signing,
it'd be great for the club's name,
for the club's brand.
Unfortunately this was almost
immediately challenged.
In Ronaldo's first season
at Juventus,
news broke that Las Vegas police
had reopened an investigation
into an allegation by a woman called
Kathryn Mayorga, an American woman,
who had alleged that Ronaldo
had raped her in 2009.
Kathryn Mayorga gave an interview
in 2018 with the German magazine
Der Spiegel about her own
encounter with Ronaldo,
and the fact she had decided to go
public in the wake of the Me Too
allegations and the slightly
changed environment
around these kind of stories.
Mayorga had reportedly reached
an out-of-court settlement
with Ronaldo in 2010.
There was a criminal investigation
in 2018, but no proceedings
were taken as there was insufficient
evidence to go any further.
Ronaldo has always
maintained his innocence,
but he has accepted the existence
of the out-of-court settlement.
He then put out a tweet that stated
a complete denial
of the allegations.
Goal!
Ronaldo's headfirst into anything
that's going to make him
a better player.
In modern-day football,
he's changed it massively cos he's
probably been the top player
that's really delved into sports
science and prolonging his career.
Yeah, listen, I think he's part
of a group of sports people of our
generation who are playing well
into their 30s at the top level still...
Serena Williams,
Roger Federer, Nadal,
LeBron, Messi, obviously,
Tom Brady.
They make sacrifices
that other don't,
and they have that obsession that
lives and breathes inside of them
that is just...
That fire never goes out.
Ronaldo!
The numbers that he's managed to
put on the board are mind-blowing.
You know, to go past Pele, but to do
it in, you know, European football,
it's just incredible.
Individual accolades,
team awards, trophies,
his goal-scoring record...
you have to say that he's at
genius level as a footballer.
Cristiano Ronaldo!
He's probably the greatest
footballer that ever lived.
Ronaldo's met it!
What a jump that was from CR7.
When I speak to Cristiano, even now,
you just listen to him speak
and there's a little bit of
anger in there even still
that helps him get out on the pitch
and produce the moments
that he's still producing.
He doesn't need it, but he'll find
something that switches that switch,
that lights that fire
to go out again.