After watching his Valladolid team earn promotion to La Liga last season, former Brazil star Ronaldo is celebrating once more after Cruzeiro achieved the same feat.
The four-time Brazilian Serie A champions had been down in the second tier since 2019, the first time they were relegated to the division, but have confirmed their return to the big time with victories over Vasco da Gama and Ponte Preta in their last two games. With just six games remaining, they have all but sealed top spot with a massive 18-point advantage over their nearest challengers.
Their promotion comes just five months after Valladolid went up in far more dramatic circumstances. The Spanish side needed a final-day victory to climb into the automatic promotion places, having been relegated from La Liga one year earlier.
Ronaldo took over as owner of Cruzeiro in 2021, fighting off competition from Liverpool owners Fenway Sports Group. He began his playing career with the Belo Horizonte club as a teenager, scoring 44 goals in 47 appearances before moving to Europe.
He has been majority owner of Valladolid for a little longer, taking a controlling stake in 2018. The newly-promoted side have one win from their first six games back in La Liga and currently sit inside the relegation zone.
It's all celebrations at Cruzeiro, though, with the team romping to the title after successive bottom-half finishes. And the owner was full of a combination of pride and excitement after receiving the "best birthday present" in the form of promotion.
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"Life has no script, but what a movie plot!" Ronaldo wrote on Instagram. "In December last year, when I announced my intention to [take control of] Cruzeiro, the certainty I had was a lot of hard work ahead.
"Four months after starting the club's reconstruction project, we signed a contract and made the purchase official. Five more months to go and the best birthday present I could get: we're back in Serie A!
"Football is not just a game. The fastest [promotion] in Serie B history was not defined in a single match. And let's go for more, much more! Let's go together!"
After Valladolid's promotion back in May, Ronaldo came good on a promise to complete a 280-mile cycle from the team's stadium to Santiago de Compostela. It will be beautiful. I know that I will suffer physically but it will be an unforgettable experience," he said.
"When we were relegated, I knew we had to do a lot of work to get back to the first division. I made the promise, we've done a very good job, especially at the beginning of the year, with all the changes we've made, all the philosophy we've changed.”
Ronaldo took the trip with his wife, with the pair travelling dozens of kilometres each day on their way to the pilgrimage site. The World Cup winner, who turned 46 this month, documented the journey on social media.
