Cristiano Ronaldo is a professional soccer player who has set records while playing for both Manchester United and Real Madrid. Well there are more facts to this lightning football player. Here is a list of facts on Cristiano Ronaldo.

For starters, Ronaldo’s full name is Cristiano Ronaldo dos Santos Aveiro, but the speedy football player prefers going by the name that the world knows for now. Ronaldo is named after the then US president Ronald Reagan, who was his father’s favorite actor. Ronaldo is the youngest child in his family and he has one older brother and two older sisters.

Ronaldo had a poor family background wherein he grew up sharing his bedroom with his siblings. At the age of eight, Ronaldo played for amateur team Andorinha, where his father was the kit man. Nicknamed as ‘cry baby’ he used to cry when he used to pass the ball to his friends and they use to not score a goal. Well, certain things never change, right?

Ronaldo was popular with other students at school, but he was expelled at the age of 14 after he threw a chair at his teacher. Ronaldo said the reason he did it was because the teacher disrespected him. Despite it being a negative thing, it turned into a great turning point in his life. His mother then encouraged him to focus all his attention on soccer which he did and turned him into an international sensation.

Ronaldo signed with local club Nacional, and, after a title-winning campaign, he went on a three-day trial with Sporting CP, who subsequently signed him for an undisclosed sum. Paulo Cardoso, his first coach at Sporting Lisbon, said: “When he got the ball he went past two or three players. At the end of the game the players gathered around him, they knew he was a special kid.”

15 year old Ronaldo was diagnosed with a racing heart, a condition that might have forced him to give up playing football. He had an operation in which a laser was used to cauterise the area of his heart that was causing the problem. The surgery took place in the morning and Ronaldo was discharged from hospital by the end of the afternoon; he resumed training only a few days later.

And as they say rest is history. Later we all know that Manchester United paid £12 million to sign him in 2003-a record fee for a player of his age. Despite being a great player, there are many people who don’t like him for his personality as he can appear a bit arrogant at times. In 2011, the legions of fans who dislike Ronaldo were justified when Ronaldo publicly proclaimed that people didn’t like him because he was too rich, handsome, and talented. And to sum up all the facts, Cristiano Ronaldo’s net worth is $250 million.