In September 2021, an article about the relationship between the world’s second richest male player Cristiano Ronaldo and his mother appeared on Quora and attracted great attention. In the article there is a paragraph:
“A reporter asked Cristiano Ronaldo: Why do you still live with your mother when you are old?
Cristiano Ronaldo replied: My mother raised me and sacrificed her life for me. She slept hungry so I could have something to eat at night. We have no money. My mother worked 7 days a week and worked as a cleaner in the evenings to help me buy football practice balls, so I could keep my dream of becoming a football player alive. All my success is dedicated to her. And as long as I’m alive, she will always be by my side and have everything I can give her. My mother is my refuge and my greatest gift. I think money does not make a rich person. In fact, some people are so poor that all they have is money. True wealth is found in gratitude for the gifts and blessings of life.”
To Ronaldo, mother is everything. Without Mrs. Dolores’s efforts to care for her, Ronaldo would not be successful today.
The mother plays a huge role in Ronaldo’s career. Photo: Getty.
Dark childhood in a poor fishing village
His mother, Maria Dolores Spinola Do Santos da Aveiro, was born on December 31, 1954 in the fishing port of Canical, one of the poorest areas of Madeira island. In Dolores’s memory, her childhood was a series of days living in hell on earth.
Ronaldo’s grandmother died of a heart attack at the age of 37, leaving behind a family of five children and an irresponsible husband.
Ronaldo’s grandfather, Viveiro, had almost no stable income. Instead of trying to raise five children, he only gave love to one child. The remaining 4 people, including Ms. Dolores, were sent to a local convent. There, she lived in loneliness, missing her parents, mixed with terrible punishments such as spanking, weeding for hours in the sun, or having her head covered with a bag.
“I tried to escape from there twice but failed,” she recalled. Even the monastery that adopted Dolores always classified her as a group of children with rebellious behavior and abnormal minds.
Mrs. Dolores always takes good care of Ronaldo’s extended family. Photo: Getty.
When she was 9 years old, she was returned to her family. At this time, Mr. Viveiro remarried a woman who also had five children of her own. I thought that life outside the monastery would change, but it didn’t. She was constantly beaten by her father and stepmother.
Dolores ran away from her own home many times but was brought back by the police. In fact, the father and stepmother do not want this child back. Mr. Viveiro also wanted to put his daughter in a center for mentally disabled children. The center director refused to accept the scolding: Why did you act like that? His daughter is completely normal.
At the age of 13, Dolores was dropped out of school to stay home and help the family. Every day, she has to wake up at 5 a.m. to weave baskets and bring them to the market to sell. All the accumulated money is held by the stepmother. Frustrated with a humiliating life, Dolores always wanted to find a way out.
Great mother
At the age of 18, she married Jose Dinis Aveiro (later Ronaldo’s father) and had 3 children when she was 22 years old. The turning point happened for the family when she was pregnant with Ronaldo in 1985. “He was the child I wanted to throw away,” Maria Dolores said in her autobiography “Courageous Mother” published in 2014.
Her desire to have an abortion was unsuccessful, and she finally decided to give birth to Ronaldo. To make ends meet for a family of four children and an alcoholic husband, Ronaldo’s mother and sister had to work as kitchen assistants all day to make ends meet. That’s why the youngest Ronaldo had to follow his mother all day.
Associated with the kitchen environment, but that cannot stop the skinny boy’s dream of playing football. Any object can become Ronaldo’s ball. He always thinks of different ways to handle his own “balls”.
In the afternoon of her youngest son, Mrs. Dolores deducted a little money from the family’s shopping allowance every day to save up and buy a proper soccer ball for her son. “I still feel the boy’s joy when receiving the gift, radiating from his eyes.”
Not understanding much about football, but when she brought Ronaldo his first meaningful gift, Mrs. Dolores believed that at least the boy would change his life starting with that ball. She always supported Cristiano in playing football, then did all the housework herself so that her son could focus all his time on his passion for playing football.
In every glorious moment, Ronaldo wants to share it with his mother. Photo: Internet
Even when Ronaldo and his wife gave birth, she also took care of CR7’s small family. It can be said that without his mother’s silent and noble sacrifices, Ronaldo certainly would not be able to achieve the success he has today.
So he always finds a way to make up for his mother. He always took his mother with him on long trips on a private jet, buying her expensive gifts. Every month, Ronaldo pays £4,800 just for Mrs. Dolores and her friends to fly to Cape Verde to swim. Ronaldo once bought his mother a car worth 100,000 pounds. A few years later, Dolores was seen taking pictures with another new car worth 250,000 pounds. Besides, there are branded items from the world’s leading fashion stores.
