Ronaldo once said that all his success is thanks to his mother. His mother is his refuge and the greatest gift he has ever received.
In September 2021, an article about the relationship between the world’s second richest football player Cristiano Ronaldo and his mother appeared on Quora and attracted great attention. The article reads:
“A reporter asked Cristiano Ronaldo: Why do you still live with your mother at your age?
Cristiano Ronaldo replied: My mother raised me, sacrificed her life for me. She slept hungry so I could eat at night. We had no money. My mother worked 7 days a week and in the evenings she did extra cleaning to help me buy soccer balls so I could pursue my dream of becoming a footballer. All my success is dedicated to her. And as long as I am alive, she will always be by my side and have everything I can give her. My mother is my refuge and my greatest gift. I think money does not make a person rich. In fact, there are some people who are so poor that all they have is money. True wealth is found in gratitude for the gifts and blessings of life.
For Ronaldo, his mother is everything. Without Dolores’s efforts to care for him, there would be no success for Ronaldo today.
Mother plays a huge role in Ronaldo’s career (Photo: Getty)
Dark childhood in poor fishing village
His mother, Maria Dolores Spinola Do Santos da Aveiro, was born on December 31, 1954, in the fishing port of Canical, one of the poorest areas of Madeira Island. In Dolores’s memory, her childhood was a series of days living in a living hell.
Ronaldo’s grandmother died of a heart attack at the age of 37, leaving behind a family of 5 children and an irresponsible husband.
Ronaldo’s grandfather, Viveiro, barely had a steady income. Instead of trying to raise his five children, he devoted all his love to one. The other four, including Dolores, were sent to a local convent. There, she lived in loneliness and longing for her parents, mixed with terrible punishments such as beatings, pulling weeds for hours in the sun, or having her head covered with a sack.
“I tried to escape from there twice but failed ,” she recalled. Even the convent that adopted Dolores always classified her as a rebellious child with abnormal mental behavior.
Mrs. Dolores always takes good care of Ronaldo’s extended family (Photo: Getty)
At the age of 9, she was returned to her family. At this time, Mr. Viveiro had remarried a woman who also had 5 children. It was thought that life outside the convent would be different, but it was not. She was constantly beaten by her father and stepmother.
Dolores had run away from her own home several times but was brought back by the police. In fact, her father and stepmother did not want her back. Mr. Viveiro even wanted to put her in a center for mentally disabled children. The center’s director refused, scolding her: Why did you do that? Your daughter is completely normal.
At the age of 13, Dolores was forced to drop out of school to stay home and help support her family. Every day, she had to wake up at 5am to weave baskets and sell them at the market. All the money she saved was kept by her stepmother. Tired of her miserable life, Dolores always wanted to find a way out.
Great Mother
At 18, she married Jose Dinis Aveiro (later Ronaldo’s father) and had three children by the time she was 22. The turning point for the family came when she became pregnant with Ronaldo in 1985. “He was the child I wanted to get rid of,” Maria Dolores said in her 2014 autobiography Courageous Mother .
After trying to abort the baby failed, she finally decided to give birth to Ronaldo. To support a family of four children and an alcoholic husband, Ronaldo’s mother and sister had to work as kitchen assistants all day to earn money. That’s why the youngest son Ronaldo had to follow his mother all day.
Although he was attached to the kitchen environment, that could not stop the skinny boy from dreaming of playing football. Every object could become Ronaldo’s ball. He always thought of different ways to handle his own “balls”.
To please her youngest son, Mrs. Dolores took a little money from the family’s grocery money every day to save up and buy a real ball for her son. “I can still feel his joy when he received the gift, it radiated from his eyes.”
Not knowing much about football, but when bringing home the first meaningful gift for Ronaldo, Mrs. Dolores believed that at least the boy’s life would change starting with that ball. She always supported Cristiano to play football, then did all the housework herself so that her son could focus all his time on his passion for playing football.
In every moment of glory, Ronaldo wants to share with his mother (Photo: Internet)
Even when Ronaldo and his wife gave birth, she still took care of CR7’s small family. It can be said that without the silent and noble sacrifices of his mother, Ronaldo certainly would not have been able to achieve the success he has today.
So he always tries to make it up to his mother. He always takes her on long trips on private jets, buys her expensive gifts. Every month, Ronaldo spends 4,800 pounds just for Dolores and her friends to fly to Cape Verde to swim. Ronaldo once bought his mother a car worth 100,000 pounds. A few years later, Dolores was seen posing with another new car worth 250,000 pounds. Besides, there are branded items from the world’s leading fashion stores.
