He is the talisman of any team he joins, the five-time Ballon d’Or winner who seems to turn everything he touches to gold.
Admired by millions, and with a bank balance and social media following to match his success, to the outside world Cristiano Ronaldo appears to have all the luck anyone would wish for.
Yet tragedy and misfortune have never been far from the sporting superstar.
From being born into an unhappy, impoverished home, to losing some of those he loved most, the Manchester United star might reasonably think he’s had worse luck than most.
The difference, according to those who know him, is that rather than let those experiences destroy him he has always used them to his advantage, to become a better, stronger person.
The 37-year-old is now having to deal with perhaps the greatest tragedy of them all – losing a baby.
Poignantly, after he scored a hat-trick in his side’s 3-2 victory over Norwich on Saturday he walked off with the ball under his shirt in an apparent tribute to pregnant partner Georgina Rodriguez.
The footballer recently opened up about what his family means to him.
“I have millions and billions but the most important thing is family,” he said. “Keep your family healthy and take care of them because this is the most important thing in the world.”
That Cristiano strives to be an even better dad than he is a footballer is no doubt due to his own experiences of growing up with a drunk father who he never had a “normal conversation” with.
The youngest of four children raised in poverty on the Portuguese island of Madeira, the young Cristiano begged for burgers outside McDonald’s and had to share one room with his three siblings.
His mum Dolores admitted she tried to have Cristiano aborted because she already had too many mouths to feed.
When the request was refused she attempted a DIY abortion, drinking boiled black beer and running until she felt exhausted. She later said: “He is a child that I wanted to abort. God didn’t want that to happen. Now everything I own I owe to Cristiano.”
His dad Jose Dinis Aveiro was left with mental health issues after serving his country in a war against Angola, which successfully fought for independence.
Unable to find a good job, he turned to alcohol to numb the memory of the atrocities he had witnessed in service.
Dolores has since said he was a good father but hinted he was abusive to her: “He was drunk almost every day. I never really knew him well. I would have liked him to have been around more.
“Although he never mistreated his children, I became his victim.”
In an interview with Piers Morgan, Ronaldo, who began playing for local team Andorinho at seven, said he grew up “a little hungry”. He added: “We have a McDonald’s next to the stadium, we knocked on the door and asked if they had any burgers.”
He also spoke sadly about his relationship with his dad: “I really don’t know my father 100%. He was a drunk person. I never spoke with him, like a normal conversation. It was hard.”
But as a youngster he cherished his family. Aged 12, Cristiano flew alone to mainland Portugal to join Sporting Lisbon and cried every day for the first year because he missed home.
Mum Dolores flew over to watch him play but needed sedating because she was so nervous. Dad Jose never got to see his son hit the heights of football stardom, when, aged just 51, he died of liver failure in 2005.
Cristiano, who had been at Old Trafford two years, was about to make his debut for Portugal, when coach Luis Felipe Scolari broke the tragic news.
The Brazilian said: “I knew how it was to lose a parent. I had lost mine a few years before. The next day, he played a marvellous game and returned to Portugal. He asked to play and said: ‘I can’t do anything for my father today, so I’ll play tomorrow, then I’ll go’.”
Cristiano later revealed that his dad’s death spurred him on: “It influenced everything. I knew the pain would pass and the most important thing was to continue with my work.”
The experience led to him swearing off alcohol for life. And when older brother, Hugo, also fell into a similar spiral of drink and drugs, he was determined to not lose him too. It was after Real Madrid ’s stunning 4-1 victory over Atletico Madrid at the Champions League final in 2014 that Ronaldo begged Hugo to get help.
Cristiano rushed over to hug Hugo in the stands and told him that now he had lifted the trophy for his beloved club his brother had to quit drinking to fulfil his part of a brotherly pact.
He paid for treatment that helped set Hugo on the road to recovery and he has been sober ever since.
Cristiano faced more heartache in 2010 when Madeira and his hometown of Funchal were hit by mudslides which left left 40 people dead and hundreds destitute. A month later, his cousin Amílcar Miguel Dos Santos Fernandes, 32, died in a car accident. Cristiano rushed home to join his family, saying: “This is one of the saddest moments of my life.”
Again, despite the blow, he was back on the training ground the next day.
His son Cristiano Junior was born in in June 2010, although his mother’s identity has never been revealed.Twins Eva and Mateo arrived in June 2017 via a surrogate mother, and Georgina had Alana that November.
In a sign of how much this latest tragedy will have affected him, it’s clear that, despite his achievements, it’s his children that matter most.
“When you are a father, it is a completely different feeling,” he said recently. “A feeling I cannot describe.”
