The World Is a Ball: Target of bullying, Cristiano Ronaldo thought about quitting football as a teenager

Now 37 years old, five times elected the best player in the world and about to compete in his fifth World Cup, Portuguese Cristiano Ronaldo considered giving up being a football player at the end of the last century.

Discovered by Sporting on the island of Madeira, where he was born, he was taken to Lisbon to continue his studies and train in the base categories of the club in the capital of Portugal.

And the adaptation was very difficult, if it can be said to have existed.

Cristiano Ronaldo, then 12 years old, was bullied by schoolmates due to the accent he had, originally from his homeland. And that made him aggressive.

He also missed the family and friends he had left behind, at a distance of 860 km, when he set himself the challenge of trying to be a professional player.

Feeling alone and affronted, Cristiano Ronaldo cried constantly, and the situation made him think about giving up his dream.

The account of CR7’s difficulties to continue in football is, according to the tabloid The Sun, in the recently released book “Messi vs. Ronaldo: One Rivalry, Two GOATs, and the Era That Remade the World’s Game” (Messi against Ronaldo: a rivalry, two GOATs and the era that remade the world’s game), by journalists Joshua Robinson and Jonathan Clegg.

GOAT stands for “greatest of all time”, or “the best of all time” – in this case, the best player in football history.

According to the book, the constant teasing related to his accent unnerved Cristiano Ronaldo to the point that he argued harshly and got into fights at school.

In one episode, in which he considered that a teacher was making fun of him, he threw a chair in the direction of the teacher.

The troubled situation extended, and Sporting saw fit, instead of sending Cristiano Ronaldo back to Madeira, to unenroll him, directing him only to what he did best: training and playing football.

The attitude is questionable for anyone who values ​​the importance of student education, but not for the future ace, who was constantly missing classes and getting terrible grades.

The English newspaper published that the famous shirt 7 later declared that he had an aversion to books. “I always felt I wasn’t cut out for school. So what to study for?”

At the age of 14, Cristiano Ronaldo only cared about chasing the ball. There were no further problems with his accent, but another issue surfaced.

The teenager already felt the need, so that he could have a melee advantage in games, to work intensely on the physical part – well-defined muscles and minimal body fat are hallmarks of the player –, but the club did not allow it.

Access to the gym, for weight training, whether on specific machines or with dumbbells, was restricted and only carried out under the supervision of specialists.

What was Cristiano Ronaldo doing then, who lived in Sporting’s training facilities?

At night, when everyone was asleep, he left the accommodation and went into the exercise room –the conclusion is that it was not locked and that there were no guards in the place– to work out.

But he ended up discovered by club employees and, in addition to being reprimanded, he could no longer, as the place won a padlock, continue his plan to gain muscle mass.

At least not there. Well, he didn’t give up. He took buckets, filled them with water in the locker room, and used them like weights to build up his biceps.

There was more: to refine the technical part, he took oranges from the cafeteria so that, when he wasn’t in training hours, he could do little tricks with them, which brought him back in control of the ball.

Thus, persisting in what he believed in even facing mishaps, Cristiano Ronaldo, studies aside, grew up at Sporting. He stood out at the base and gained space in the first team, for which he debuted in 2002, at the age of 17.

The rest – the move to Manchester United, Real Madrid, Juventus and the return to Manchester United – is known history, full of goals (over 800), which includes winning the Euro 2016 with Portugal. .