“I am very happy to have completed this transaction. I owe a lot to the Cruzeiro and I want to put him back in his place”, confided, Ronaldo, double Golden Ball (1997 and 2002) in a video published, Saturday, December 18, on social networks by the president of Cruzeiro, Sérgio Santos Rodrigues. The Brazilian has decided to take over the club that allowed him to take his first professional steps.
“We have nothing to celebrate at the moment, but we have a lot of ambition”, he added, holding a blue jersey of the Belo Horizonte team flocked with the number 9 with his nickname “Fenomeno”.
According to the site Globoesporte.com, Ronaldo, 45, will become the majority shareholder of the club. In 2018, he had already bought the club Valladolid, currently in the Spanish second division after his relegation last season.
Passed by the training center of Sao Cristovao, a small club in Rio de Janeiro, his hometown, Ronaldo joined Cruzeiro at the age of 16. And it was with the Blues of Belo Horizonte that he made his professional debut, in 1993. In total, he scored 56 goals in 58 games for Cruzeiro, which earned him the title. called up for the 1994 World Cup, which he won without playing a single minute.
After this coronation, it was sold by Cruzeiro to PSV Eindhoven (1994-1996). Ronaldo then shone at FC Barcelona (1996-1997), Inter Milan (1997-2002), Real Madrid (2002-2007) then AC Milan (2007-2008), before ending his career at the Corinthians in Sao Paulo (2009-2011). In 2002, the eternal number 9 of the Seleçao became legend after returning from a long injury to give Brazil their fifth world championship title, scoring eight goals in seven games in South Korea and Japan.
Cruzeiro has been one of the best Brazilian clubs of the last decade, with two doubles in the national league (2013 and 2014) and in the Brazilian Cup (2017 and 2018). But the team was relegated at the end of 2019, mainly because of financial problems and internal tensions within the management. She has even been threatened with going down to the third division this season, eventually finishing a pitiful 14th place in the Brazilian Serie B.