Cristiano Ronaldo And His Leadership Style
Cristiano Ronaldo is a professional soccer player who has set records while playing for the Manchester United and Real Madrid clubs as well as the Portuguese national team. Cristiano Ronaldo was born on February 5, 1985 in Funchal, Madeira, Portugal, a small island off the western coast of the country. The island of Madeira was also the place where Cristiano first learned to master his skills as a footballer. He spent his early years playing for his local team, National and by the time he turned 12 years old, he already made his name for himself as one of Madeira's top footballers.
It wasn't long before he started to catch the attention of other big Portuguese clubs. He was then spotted by former Liverpool manager, Gerard Houllier at the age of sixteen but Liverpool had no intentions to sign him at that time because they thought he was too young and he needed more time to develop his skills. However, in the summer of 2003, when Sporting played against Manchester United and defeated them, Cristiano caught the attention of Manchester United manager, Sir Alex Ferguson. Ronaldo became Manchester United's first-ever Portuguese player. In the 2006 World Cup, Cristiano faced accusations regarding his sportsmanship. In 2007, he won PFA Young Player of the Year, PFA Player of the Year, PFA Fans' Player of the Year, Portuguese Footballer of the Year, FWA Footballer of the Year, Sir Matt Busby Player of the Year and Manchester United's Players' Player of the Year.
The year 2008 also saw him taking back the PFA Player Of The Year Award for the second time running. That same year, Ronaldo also had to deal with controversies regarding his club transfer to Spanish giants, Real Madrid. He eventually chose to stay with Manchester United and stressed to the public that he had no intentions of leaving the club. . First and foremost, the guy leads by example, he is super disciplined and professional. From simple things like sleeping and getting up on time to things like changing his playing style as he grew old, he’s ready to do just anything and everything to improve his game. Secondly, people don’t look up to him just because he’s a great footballer but because he’s genuine person. I have heard many young players who have played with him telling stories about how Ronaldo talked to them, motivated them and stuff. For what I can make out of it is that Ronaldo, indeed is like an ideal big brother. Many people, just by looking him on the pitch make this misconception that he’s arrogant and egoistic. I perceive him completely differently. What we see on the pitch is a player who is extremely focused and when he shouts at his teammates, it is not because of arrogance or ego but because he wants them to push themselves beyond their limits and do things right. Ronaldo also believe in his talent. He was red-carded for a headbutt on Portsmouth player Richard Hughes during Manchester United’s second match of the season, for which he was punished with a three-match ban. He became extremely down as there were severe criticisms of his talent.
However, Ronaldo would not back down because he had deep self-belief not to doubt his talent. Ronaldo is so passionate about practice that he trains for many days to perfect a single area in his game. Cristiano Ronaldo does not seem to ease up his training regimen and learning programs. He continues to push himself hard and keeps learning new tricks to enable him to remain the king of football. Ronaldo do not let setbacks affect him. When Ronaldo was in school, he was quite popular with other students. Yet at the age of 14, he was expelled after he threw a chair at his teacher. Ronaldo later said of the incident, “He disrespected me. ” Although the incident would usually spell disaster for any young child, Ronaldo’s mother encouraged his son to forget about school and focus entirely on football. At the age of 15, Ronaldo was diagnosed with a racing heart condition that would spell disaster for any sport careers. Subsequently, he went for an operation and began training as soon as he was out from the hospital. Over the years, Ronaldo has adopted his game so that he can score goals from anywhere in the opposition’s half. Ronaldo trains rigorously so that he is always one step ahead of his opponents. He initially was the king of step-overs. Then, when the opposition started to figure out his moves, he improved his game in different areas. The best part about Ronaldo’s leadership is he respect his mentor. Sir Alex Ferguson and Ronaldo had an interesting relationship. Ferguson helped develop Ronaldo and Ronaldo took his sage advice frequently.
Although their relationship reportedly went sour, Ronaldo called Ferguson his father and his most influential person when he quit and went to Real Madrid. That leadership was on full display at Euro 2016. Even when Ronaldo wasn’t playing at his best, he was constantly directing, encouraging and pushing his teammates to the best performances that he could. He did everything he could to inspire his teammates. Against Poland, Ronaldo told Joao Moutinho to take one of Portugal’s penalties in the shootout because he knew Moutinho would make it. On Sunday in the Euro 2016 final, he told Eder that he knew Eder would score the winning goal. For the "but he’s so selfish" crowd, this wasn't Ronaldo tooting his own horn by telling us about those words. His pep talk for Moutinho was revealed by a video clip of their talk that came out after the match. Eder told the media what Ronaldo told him during the celebration after their triumph.
