In 1993, Ronaldo began his professional football career playing for Cruzeiro which was already going on to become a successful club. In his first and only year with Cruzeiro, he amassed 12 goals in 14 appearances and lead them to their first Copa do Brasil championship. After Cruzeiro, he signed with Dutch football team PSV in 1994. In 1996, his final year with PSV, Ronaldo helped them win the Dutch Cup. Ronaldo has also played for Barcelona, Milan, Real Madrid and Internazionale.
Ronaldo is also an established national footballer for Brazil. He has appeared in 97 international matches, amassing 62 goals and standing 15 goals away from the Brazilian national scoring record. He was a part of the Brazilian squad that won the 1994, and 2002 World Cups. During the 2006 World Cup, Ronaldo became the highest goalscorer in the history of the World Cup with his fifteenth goal, surpassing Gerd Müller's previous record of 14.
Nicknamed O Fenômeno ("The Phenomenon" in English), Ronaldo was also one of the most prolific scorers in the nineties and in the early twenty-first century. During his football career in Europe, Ronaldo became one of the most renowned strikers in the world by winning his first Ballon d'Or as the European Footballer of the Year in 1997 and again in 2002. He is also one of only two footballers to have won the FIFA Player of the Year award three times, along with French footballer Zinédine Zidane. In 2007, he was named as one of the best starting eleven of all-time by France Football and was named to the FIFA 100, a list of the greatest footballers compiled by fellow countryman Pelé.
Barcelona
Later, he attracted the attention of Barcelona. He played for Barça in the 1996-97 season, scoring 47 goals in 49 games (including appearances in the Spanish Cup & Spanish Supercup and European Cup Winners Cup) on the way to leading the Catalan side to UEFA Cup Winners' Cup triumph (where he capped the season with the winning goal in the cup final itself) and to Spanish Cup and Spanish Supercup. He also won La Liga top scorer award in 1997 and as of 2008, Ronaldo is the last player to score more than 30 goals in one season in the Spanish La Liga.
Internazionale
Inter signed him the following year, and Ronaldo duly helped them repeat his former side's cup-winning run, this time in the UEFA Cup, in which he scored their third goal in the final itself. On November 21, 1999, during a Serie A match against Lecce, Ronaldo felt his knee buckle and was forced to limp off the pitch. Medical exams after the match confirmed that the striker had ruptured a tendon in his right knee and would require surgery.[1] During his first comeback on April 12, 2000, he played only seven minutes during the first leg of the Coppa Italia final against Lazio before injuring his knee for a second time.[2] After two operations and 36 months of rehabilitation, Ronaldo came back for the 2002 World Cup, helping Brazil win their fifth World Cup title. Later in 2002 he won the World Player of the Year award for the third time, and transferred from Inter to Real Madrid. He played 100 games and scored 59 goals for nerazzurri.
Real Madrid
Ronaldo playing for Real Madrid
He was sidelined through injury until October 2002 but the fans kept on chanting his name. Ronaldo scored twice in his debut for Real Madrid. That same reception was observed on the night of the final game of the season against Athletic Bilbao, where Ronaldo scored again to seal his first season with 23 league goals and the La Liga Championship title for 2003, which Ronaldo had previously failed to win while with Barcelona. With Real he also won a Intercontinental Cup in 2002 and Spanish Super Cup in 2003.
Milan
On 18 January 2007, it was reported that Ronaldo agreed terms with Milan for a transfer of about €7.5 million.[3] Ronaldo was forced to pay for the remaining period on his contract which tied him to Real Madrid, only because the latter did not agree to release him, while Milan were not ready to pay such a sum. On Thursday, January 25 Ronaldo flew from Madrid to Milan to watch Milan in a cup tie against Roma. Statements on the club's website said that Ronaldo was in Milan for a medical, and that a meeting had been arranged for Monday with Real Madrid officials to discuss and finalize his transfer to Milan. On 26 January, Ronaldo successfully completed his medical tests at the Milanello training complex under the supervision of club doctors, and the transfer completed on January 30[4] and got the jersey number 99. He made his debut as a substitute for Milan on 11 February 2007, during the 2-1 victory over Livorno. The next game at Siena on 17 February 2007, Ronaldo scored twice and assisted on a third goal in his first start for Milan as they won an exciting game 4-3. In his first season at Milan, Ronaldo scored 7 goals in 14 appearances.[1]
After his move to Milan, Ronaldo joined the list of the few players to have played for both Internazionale and Milan in the Milan Derby and is the only player to have scored for both sides in the derby game (for Inter in the 98/99 season and for Milan in the 06/07 season). Ronaldo is also one of the few players to have started for Real Madrid and Barcelona, which also boasts a heated rivalry. However, Ronaldo has never transferred directly between the teams in the derby. Ronaldo only played 300-plus minutes for Milan in his single season at Milan due to recurring injury problems and weight issues. Ronaldo's only goals in the 2007/2008 season, besides his goal against Lecce in pre-season, came in a 5-2 victory against Napoli at the San Siro, where he scored an emotional brace. It was also the first time Milan's much hyped attacking trio of Kaká, Alexandre Pato and Ronaldo, known as Ka-Pa-Ro played together. In total he scored 9 goals in 20 appearances for Milan.
Despite tremendous success over the past decade, Ronaldo has never won the UEFA Champions League in his club career. During the 2006-07 season, though Milan won the 2006-07 title, Ronaldo was cup-tied with Madrid and ineligible to take part. The closest that he has been was in 2003 when he helped Real Madrid to the semi-finals, in which they lost to Juventus.
On 13 February 2008, Ronaldo suffered a severe season-ending knee injury while jumping for a cross in Milan's 1-1 draw with Livorno, and was stretchered off and taken to a hospital. Milan confirmed after the match that Ronaldo had ruptured the kneecap ligament in his left knee. It marked the third such occurrence of this injury, which he suffered twice to his right knee in 1998 and 2000.[5] He was released by Milan at the end of the season, as his contract expired and was not renewed.
goals and was runner-up to the Golden Ball as most valuable player in the tournment. He also scored against every opponent in the tournament except in the quarter-finals against England. In the final match against Germany, Ronaldo scored his 11th and 12th goals to a round of applause and tied Pelé's Brazilian record of 12 career World Cup goals.[13]
On 2 June 2004, Ronaldo scored a hat-trick of penalties for Brazil against archrivals Argentina in a CONMEBOL qualifier for the 2006 World Cup.
In the 2006 FIFA World Cup, although Brazil won their first two group games against Croatia and Australia, respectively, Ronaldo was repeatedly jeered for being overweight and slow. (Brazil President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva questioned the national coach asking if, "Ronaldo is fat or isn't he?"). Nonetheless, coach Carlos Alberto Parreira kept him in the starting lineup in face of calls to have Ronaldo replaced. With his two goals against Japan in the 2006 FIFA World Cup, he became the 20th player ever to score in three different FIFA World Cups. Ronaldo scored in the 1998, 2002 and 2006 World Cups. On June 27, 2006, he broke the all-time World Cup Finals scoring record of 14, held by Gerd Müller after scoring his 15th World Cup goal against Ghana in the 2006 FIFA World Cup Round of 16. He also equaled a much less talked about mark: with his third goal of the 2006 World Cup, Ronaldo became only the second player ever (Jürgen Klinsmann being the other) to score at least three goals in each of three World Cups. However, Brazil were knocked out by France 1-0 in the quarter-finals.
The fallout after Brazil's performance in the World Cup saw them appoint former captain Dunga as manager. His attempt to end the star culture of the Brazilian national team saw him drop Ronaldo not only from the starting line-up but from the squad altogether. He hasn't been selected since. He is fifteen goals away from becoming Brazil's all-time top-scorer.
Ronaldo has played down speculation of a national team return since his move to Corinthians, insisting that recovering from his injury was the most important thing. However, he has not hidden his desire to play at the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.
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