Santiago Bernabeu
Spanish food
Preamble
Cristiano Ronaldo is undoubtedly the most popular soccer player of this era. His fabulous skills and astonishing goal scoring records fascinate even those who do not have much interests in soccer. He has played for Real Madrid, a Spanish soccer club since he left Manchester United in 2009. In his former club, he played with Jisung Park who arranged a dinner appointment with a Korean guy for Cristiano. The name of this extremely lucky guy is Youngil and he fled to Spain right after news reached him. Cristiano invites Youngil to the VIP room of Santiago Bernabeu, the main stadium of his team. The stadium is empty for the new season is to come in a month. They order fabulous Spanish foods and their conversation starts now. The time setting for this meeting is the summer break before 2011~12 season.
Youngil: Hello Ronaldo. I am extremely happy to meet you.
Cristiano: Hello Youngil. I am also glad to meet you. Just call me Cristiano.
Youngil: Okay, Cristiano. First of all, I really appreciate you for meeting me before new season is only one month left. You must be pretty busy these days, to prepare for the new season.
Cristiano: Yes. I am busy and my whole team members are busy. We lost the chance to win the league title to Barcelona again last season. We are scouting more players and trying to make the team more systematic.
Youngil: Although the performance of your team was relatively bad compared to Barcelona, your performance was unbelievable. You broke the record of scoring the most in Primera Liga during one season. Congratulations!
Cristiano: Gracias! This is all because of my fellow players and fans of Real Madrid who always supported me to play better. I feel like I have said "Hala Madrid" in front of the home fans yesterday and there is this third season coming for me.
Youngil: You know this meeting was arranged by Jisung Park who played with you in your former club, Manchester United. I was very sad to see you leaving Manchester after failing to win Barcelona in Champions League Final. Moreover, I was also sad to find that you are not going to play with Jisung Park anymore.
Cristiano: I was also very sad to leave Manchester leaving all the friends behind. However, Real Madrid was always my dream club and the club waited for me for several years offering tons of money to Manchester United. I could not just give up the challenges I would meet in Spain. Plus, I wanted to stay close to my family in Portugal.
Youngil: It sounds like you have special affinity for your family. How is your relationship with your family?
Cristiano: Well, I love my family just as others do. As you might know, my father died when I was quite young. My mother had to work to sustain my family. We did suffer when I was young and we had to stick together.
Youngil: You signed up Sporting Lisbon at the age of 12. Didn't you feel lonely to be parted away from your family at such an early age?
Cristiano: Of course I did. However, it was such a great chance for my life that I could not give it up. Signing up with Sporting Lisbon did help me consequently since Manchester United found me after its match with Lisbon.
Youngil: Let us get to some interesting parts. You played with Jisung Park in Manchester. How did you feel about him?
Cristiano: Okay. He is certainly a great player. He runs more than any other players on the ground and does not play for his own sake. He always participated eagerly in all the trainings. Still, he was not the greatest player like Rooney. He had no crucial impact to change a game entirely in a moment. His presence was beneficial to the team and that was it.
Youngil: I think that is pretty harsh comment. How did you find him as a person?
Cristiano: Like I said, he was always diligent. I was really surprised when he recovered from his injury only after 5 months when the doctors predicted it to take far more than that. Still, he seemed not to enjoy hanging with me. He prefered to stay hom while I like meeting with a lot of people.
Youngil: There comes another issue. Cristiano, I am sorry to say this but I will say the truth. Your image to many people is that of a genius soccer player who does not put much effort but still performs well because of his natural ability and physical. Do you want to refute to this claim?
Cristiano: Yes. I definitely want to argue against the alleged claim. It is not just right to defame me that I do not put efforts. I always practice a lot to improve myself. For example, I developed my unique freekick style while I was at Manchester United. It is not that I do not like to enjoy my life but that I do not want to be called a just lucky man who do not spare time for practice.
Youngil: I understand you. Your freekick is just so fabulous. You mentioned that you like to play with girls and at the same time, you are a father to a baby. Why did you not marry his mom? Was it because you did not want to give up your freedom?
Cristiano: I admit that many people oppose to the idea that I only raise my child and not marry the mother. Also, I admit that I did not want to marry the woman. Let's say she was not my soulmate. One day, after meeting with dozens of other girls, I might find a perfect match that I would want to marry Still, I could not give up my baby. That is why I paid a lot to earn the right to raise him.
Youngil: That is reasonable. Also many of your fans feel that you are too young and attractive to be possessed by one woman. Now let me ask you how you are planning to live your future.
Cristiano: I have not yet planned my future out neatly. I am currently focusing my everything on winning as many cups as possible with my team. In the future, I might still be working related to soccer or might not be. However whatever I do, I will try to remain in contact with a lot of my fans who always supported me.
Youngil: That is a wonderful plan Cristiano. Maybe it's time to end our dinner.
Cristiano: It was a great pleasure to meet you and have conversation about me haha.
Youngil: I thank you one more time for meeting with me today. I wish you the greatest luck for the upcoming season. Adios!
Cristiano: Adios.
Cristiano: Well, I love my family just as others do. As you might know, my father died when I was quite young. My mother had to work to sustain my family. We did suffer when I was young and we had to stick together.
Youngil: You signed up Sporting Lisbon at the age of 12. Didn't you feel lonely to be parted away from your family at such an early age?
Cristiano: Of course I did. However, it was such a great chance for my life that I could not give it up. Signing up with Sporting Lisbon did help me consequently since Manchester United found me after its match with Lisbon.
Youngil: Let us get to some interesting parts. You played with Jisung Park in Manchester. How did you feel about him?
Cristiano: Okay. He is certainly a great player. He runs more than any other players on the ground and does not play for his own sake. He always participated eagerly in all the trainings. Still, he was not the greatest player like Rooney. He had no crucial impact to change a game entirely in a moment. His presence was beneficial to the team and that was it.
Youngil: I think that is pretty harsh comment. How did you find him as a person?
Cristiano: Like I said, he was always diligent. I was really surprised when he recovered from his injury only after 5 months when the doctors predicted it to take far more than that. Still, he seemed not to enjoy hanging with me. He prefered to stay hom while I like meeting with a lot of people.
Youngil: There comes another issue. Cristiano, I am sorry to say this but I will say the truth. Your image to many people is that of a genius soccer player who does not put much effort but still performs well because of his natural ability and physical. Do you want to refute to this claim?
Cristiano: Yes. I definitely want to argue against the alleged claim. It is not just right to defame me that I do not put efforts. I always practice a lot to improve myself. For example, I developed my unique freekick style while I was at Manchester United. It is not that I do not like to enjoy my life but that I do not want to be called a just lucky man who do not spare time for practice.
Youngil: I understand you. Your freekick is just so fabulous. You mentioned that you like to play with girls and at the same time, you are a father to a baby. Why did you not marry his mom? Was it because you did not want to give up your freedom?
Cristiano: I admit that many people oppose to the idea that I only raise my child and not marry the mother. Also, I admit that I did not want to marry the woman. Let's say she was not my soulmate. One day, after meeting with dozens of other girls, I might find a perfect match that I would want to marry Still, I could not give up my baby. That is why I paid a lot to earn the right to raise him.
Youngil: That is reasonable. Also many of your fans feel that you are too young and attractive to be possessed by one woman. Now let me ask you how you are planning to live your future.
Cristiano: I have not yet planned my future out neatly. I am currently focusing my everything on winning as many cups as possible with my team. In the future, I might still be working related to soccer or might not be. However whatever I do, I will try to remain in contact with a lot of my fans who always supported me.
Youngil: That is a wonderful plan Cristiano. Maybe it's time to end our dinner.
Cristiano: It was a great pleasure to meet you and have conversation about me haha.
Youngil: I thank you one more time for meeting with me today. I wish you the greatest luck for the upcoming season. Adios!
Cristiano: Adios.
