Cristiano Ronaldo has admitted it took him some time to
win over the Real Madrid fans, but he now wants to stay
at the club for the rest of his career. Despite his remarkable goal-scoring form since a
world-record move from Manchester United in summer
2009, Ronaldo had to endure regular whistles from the
Bernabeu crowd in his first few seasons at the club.
Madrid fans took offence at his egoistic style and a
tendency not to show up in big games against Barcelona
but were won over in the 2011-12 campaign, when Los
Blancos overcame Barca and Ronaldo becoming the first
player ever to score in six consecutive Clasicos.
The Portuguese forward, fresh from his starring role in
securing his country’s progress to the 2014 World Cup,
told radio show El Partido de las 12 that he now loves
life in the Spanish capital.
“I love the people of Madrid, los madrileños, los
madridistas,” Ronaldo said. “I am living a dream when I
go into the Estadio Bernabeu, knowing the fans love me
a lot and I feel really good. I feel like I want to finish my
career here because I feel really happy, I love living in
Madrid, I love playing for the best club in the world. I
cannot ask for any more.”
The 28-year-old recognised his relationship with Madrid
fans had not always been so positive, but is delighted to
have won their hearts and minds.
“At the start I did not know how to impress the fans at
the Bernabeu, it is special, with a different culture to
other countries,” Ronaldo said. “The truth is in the first
years I didnot feel at home on the pitch
“But after I began to understand that it might have been
who was wrong, not the fans, because the fans are like
that, it is the Spanish mentality. In the third year or the
fourth I began to really enjoy Madrid, on the pitch and off
the pitch. And now I feel a person who is 100 percent
happy.
“Age and experience maybe have made me see things
in a different way. Maybe now I think differently than
four years ago, and do not make as many mistakes
now. That forms part of my evolution.”
His now widely admired ‘calm down, calm down’ goal
celebration, first seen at the Camp Nou when he scored
the winner in an April 2012 Clasico which clinched that
season’s title, had not been planned, Ronaldo claimed.
“I do not plan these things,” he said. “It all began in the
game against Barcelona. The fans were excited and
when I scored it was to tell them that they should be
calm, that the game was not over. And that I was still
here and could still do some more little things.”
Ronado was joined in the studio by three children who
are currently undergoing treatment for leukaemia, and
said he had been a bone marrow donor since he learned
of the problem faced in 2011 by the son of Portugal
teammate Carlos Martins.
“Many people might think it is a difficult thing to do, but
it does not take much at all, it just means taking a small
bit of blood,” he said. “I did it many years ago, and if I
had to do it again I would as it does not hurt, there is no
problem and we can help many people, many children,
many older people. Above all for children it is a very
serious illness and we must help out.”