Cristiano Ronaldo is the best player in world football today, having won the Ballon d’Or five times. He has had an extraordinary football career, largely thanks to the guidance of his great mother Maria Dolores Aveiro.
So what if I cling to my mother’s skirt?
Before being with his current girlfriend and having children, Cristiano Ronaldo had a 5-year relationship with the beautiful Irina Shayk. One of the reasons why the Portuguese superstar decided to break up with the supermodel born in 1986 was his mother – Maria Dolores Aveiro. Shayk could not stand the situation of “living with her mother-in-law”, and had to glare at each other all day.
The conflict between mother-in-law and “fake daughter-in-law” reached its climax in early 2015. Shayk was accused of using rude words to Dolores. That was something Ronaldo could not accept. For the Portuguese striker, his mother was a “forbidden zone” that no one was allowed to invade. So, the handsome couple went their separate ways. After the breakup, Shayk appeared in the media and called her ex-boyfriend “a motherfucker”.
Until now, although he is about to reach the age of “40 and still not confused”, Ronaldo still lives with his mother. In an interview in 2021, when being “teased” by reporters about “clinging to his mother’s skirt”, CR7 boldly declared: “My mother gave me this life. She raised me and sacrificed her whole life for us. She would rather go hungry and cold than let us go to bed with an empty stomach.”
Ronaldo and peaceful moments with his mother
Ronaldo affirmed: “As long as I am alive in this world, my mother will always be by my side. It’s not that she lives thanks to me, but that I need her to rely on. I will always live with her. I want her to educate her children, just like the way she raised and loved us.” Also because of her birth mother, before Irina Shayk, Ronaldo had said goodbye to many other beauties.
Dolores is a “Strong Woman”
In football, whenever comparing Cristiano Ronaldo with Lionel Messi, people mention the two concepts of “intelligence” and “enlightenment”. M10 is a type of player with “enlightenment” – meaning that his talent is bestowed by God. CR7 is a type of player with “intelligence” – meaning that he has achieved success thanks to his strong will and tireless efforts.
But compared to his great mother, Ronaldo’s efforts are nothing. At the age of 5, Dolores lost her mother. Her irresponsible father – CR7’s grandfather – hastily sent her 4 young children to the orphanage to remarry. Because her sisters were separated, little Dolores at that time tried many times to escape the control of the nuns to meet her younger siblings. The consequences of those “breaking the rules” were severe beatings.
Dolores is a woman of extraordinary strength.
When Dolores was 9 years old, she was sent home for being “stubborn and unteachable”. So from the “hell on earth” of the poorhouse, the little girl entered another period of suffering. Dolores was only allowed to study until she was 13, after which her father and stepmother forced her to stay home to take care of her younger siblings. Even though she had to wake up at 5am to do housework and take care of her younger siblings, Dolores still could not please the adults in the house. She had to endure constant beatings, the marks of which are still on her body to this day.
At the age of 18, Dolores married a man named Jose Dinis Aveiro, and from there entered another tragic phase of her life. At first, Dolores’s married life was very happy, her husband loved his wife and children very much. But after joining the army and experiencing many wars in Africa, Jose Dinis Aveiro suffered from war phobia. He often drank to drown his sorrows, leaving his wife to struggle to make a living to “raise enough four children with a husband”. Then cirrhosis also took her husband’s life, making Dolores a widow at a young age.
A life of hardship for children & the resilience to fight illness
After her husband passed away, Dolores worked like crazy, accepting all kinds of jobs, as long as she had money to send her children to school. She took on weaving wicker baskets, carving handicrafts, cleaning toilets, carrying loads, and then working as a kitchen assistant at a hotel… There were days when she had to stay up all night to complete the extra work and go to work in the morning.
Ronaldo grew up thanks to the single-handed teaching of Mrs. Dolores
However, being a single mother of four children made it impossible for her family to get ahead. Ronaldo’s family still had to receive relief goods from social organizations and Ronaldo’s siblings only had rice and meat to eat once every two weeks.
Then Ronaldo’s three siblings, Hugo, Elma and Katia, all had to struggle to make a living from an early age to devote all their efforts to “invest” in their younger brother, who was considered a promising football talent. To encourage her son to play football with peace of mind, Dolores never complained in front of him. She always took advantage of all her free time to go to the field to watch her son play football, promptly giving her son advice… It can be affirmed that his mother is the woman who casts the biggest shadow over Ronaldo’s life.
Even when Ronaldo became the world’s top football star, Dolores was still suffering. In 2007, she discovered that she had breast cancer for the first time. So Ronaldo’s wonderful mother once again had to fight against fate. Dolores had to undergo several surgeries. The extraordinary efforts and will of the mother of four children defeated cancer for a long time, until it returned to torment her in 2019.
Ronaldo’s happy family
In recent years, Dolores’ health has been deteriorating. In 2021, she suffered a stroke. However, that could not defeat a “strong woman” like Dolores. She fought to regain her life, trained hard so that now she still has enough strength to walk, support Ronaldo in taking care of and educating the children.
It is no exaggeration to say that Dolores has had an extraordinary career and deserves to be called a “heroic woman”. The greatest achievement of her life is her son Ronaldo – a player who has won 5 Golden Balls and is considered the best player in contemporary world football.
