Cristiano comes on stage

“I don't have to prove anything to anyone,” Cristiano said in his first response to ACE on June 14, 2010. One of the first “I'm here” of his career was the 2004 Euro Cup, at just 19 years old. Back then it was just a rookie, in 2010 it was already all-star. His performance this month in South Africa remained to be seen, but Cristiano's mind was really on to something else. Cristiano JR would be born three days later.

Incredible as it may seem, Cristiano had not celebrated a goal with Portugal since February 2009: ten consecutive games without seeing a goal. He was a different Christian, of course. In his first year at the Bernabéu he averaged 3.1 dribbles per game and in his last one he dropped the figure to 1.1 … Consequently, he first averaged 3.2 fouls in favor per game and ended up suffering only 0.7. He also lost more possession, of course, from 2.8 to 1. He was not the scoring beast that he is today, of course, and his team, of which he is the top scorer in the absence of one to reach the hundred, he was fouled in the run 1-0 in favor of Spain in the eighths of Cape Town.

“Kaka knows that he has not made a great League, but it is because he has had an injury and perhaps it has been difficult for him to adapt a little, but I know that he is going to make a great World Cup and that he will make history in Madrid. (…) Benzema is Another great player who has not done very well this season, but I am sure that together we will make history with Real Madrid “, he confessed, predicted and almost wanted Cristiano to get out of trouble over his two teammates in the front after making a 33 (goals) of 35 (matches) in his first season, those months in which it was CR9. That June there was no doubt about him, the bad boy compared to the Brazilian evangelist and the under-23 Benzema, then still behind Higuaín for Pellegrini.

They were the beginnings of everything. He had already introduced himself to José Mourinho, but he was not yet the Madrid of the Portuguese. In fact, Pepe, the only Portuguese with Ronaldo that season, broke the crusader in December and arrived in South Africa with doubts. “I am happy just to be here”. He played the last two games of Portugal in that World Cup: Brazil and Spain. Both ahead of Bruno Alves and Ricardo Carvalho, as the great days of Madrid would do months later, at the time of the four consecutive classics, those of the Mestalla final. From that month of the World Cup, Madrid took Khedira and Özil, but also Carvalho. All the gears began to fit to take Cristiano to be history.