Before the Ballon d’Or awards, before the number 7 shirts sold by the millions, there was a teenager in Lisbon receiving 50 euros a month. Cristiano Ronaldo was just 12 or 13 years old when Sporting de Portugal paid him his first salary for playing football.
He didn’t spend it on anything flashy. With that money, he bought his school books, notebooks, and even the bag he carried them in every day.
He himself told the story years later: for a boy who came from a poor family in Madeira, those 50 euros were a fortune. He also earned an extra 5 euros every time he worked as a ball boy at the first team’s matches.
Today we know how the story ends: promotion to the first team for 2.000 euros a month, the move to Manchester United with 150.000 euros a month, and the day he asked his mother, Dolores Aveiro, to stop working. But it all began with a boy paying for his own school supplies.
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