Hisson

𝑊𝑟𝑖𝑡𝑡𝑒𝑛 𝑓𝑟𝑜𝑚 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑝𝑢𝑏𝑙𝑖𝑐 𝑟𝑒𝑐𝑜𝑟𝑑 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐁𝐨𝐲 𝐖𝐡𝐨 𝐑𝐞𝐟𝐮𝐬𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐲 𝐒𝐦𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐶𝑟𝑖𝑠𝑡𝑖𝑎𝑛𝑜 𝑅𝑜𝑛𝑎𝑙𝑑𝑜 𝑑𝑜𝑠 𝑆𝑎𝑛𝑡𝑜𝑠 𝐴𝑣𝑒𝑖𝑟𝑜. 41. Still scoring. Still chasing. He entered the world on 5 February 1985 in Funchal, on the Portuguese island of Madeira. Youngest of four. Brother Hugo. Sisters Elma and Katia. Father José Dinis Aveiro: municipal gardener and part-time kit man at local club Andorinha. Mother Maria Dolores dos Santos Aveiro: cook and cleaner who held the household together. They lived in Santo António, one of the poorer neighbourhoods. A small tin-roofed house. Shared rooms. Money was always short. His father named him Ronaldo after Ronald Reagan, the American president and actor he admired. An aunt chose Cristiano. In her own public memoir his mother later revealed she had considered ending the pregnancy because of the family’s extreme poverty and her husband’s struggles. She did not. She has called him the blessing that followed. He grew up kicking a ball in the actual streets. Old boots passed down from his brother or cousins. No proper goals. Games stopped every time a car drove past. His father kept encouraging him to join Andorinha’s youth side. Ronaldo went. He cried when his team lost or when teammates would not pass. They called him “Chorão”, the crybaby. He did not mind. Winning already meant everything. At school he was restless. He was eventually expelled after throwing a chair at a teacher who, by his own later account, had disrespected his family’s situation. Formal education ended around the sixth grade. Football took over.