Welcome to the world of Cristiano Ronaldo Jnr

 Cristiano Ronaldo races on to a pass in the box, smashes a first-time shot in off the crossbar and runs towards the corner flag before performing a “SIUUUU” celebration.

Like any clip of a Ronaldo goal, footage posted in May last year to the social media accounts of the Portugal national team attracted millions of views, likes and comments.

Yet, the Ronaldo in the red shirt with No 7 on its back was not the man who owns almost every scoring record going at both club and international level. Instead, it was his son, Cristiano Jnr, and the goal was the striker’s first for Portugal. Portugal Under-15s, to be precise, in a 3-2 win over Croatia in which the then 14-year-old also scored a close-range header.

Almost six months later and having turned 15, the teenager was at it again, this time scoring his first goal for his country’s under-16 team, footage of which, too, went viral.

Since then, “Cristiano Dos Santos” has scored twice in a Uefa Development Tournament in May this year, a feat matched by his father netting two goals on the final day of the Saudi Pro League season to end an agonising wait to win the title there.

His 16th birthday celebrations coincided with Ronaldo Snr leading Portugal out at a World Cup in which the 41-year-old became the first player to score at six separate finals.

The son of a famous footballer following in his father’s footsteps is nothing new. But there has rarely been such fascination with a player’s offspring as this one.

That fascination has been evident from the day Ronaldo became a parent, in what remain mysterious circumstances, on June 17, 2010. Announcing Cristiano Jnr’s birth on social media just over a fortnight later, Ronaldo wrote: “It is with great joy and emotion that I inform I have recently become father to a baby boy. As agreed with the baby’s mother, who prefers to have her identity kept confidential, my son will be under my exclusive guardianship. No further information will be provided on this subject and I request everyone to fully respect my right to privacy (and that of the child) at least on issues as personal as these are.”

The news was so surprising, a report on Ronaldo’s post by Telegraph Sport even questioned whether “the content of the statement is genuine or the work of a hacker”. It became apparent that Ronaldo had not been present at the birth in La Mesa, California, as he had been at the World Cup in South Africa.

In the nearly 16 years since, he has kept his word not to reveal details of how Cristiano Jnr was conceived or the identity of the boy’s mother. He told The Jonathan Ross Show in November 2015: “People speculate I was with this girl or another, or there was a surrogate mother. I have never told anyone and never will... When Cristiano is going to grow up, I am always going to say the truth to him because he deserves it, because he is my son, but I am not going to say because people want me to say.” That Ronaldo went on to have twins via a surrogate in 2017 merely compounded speculation about their elder brother’s origins.

Following his own birth, public sightings of the baby Cristiano Jnr were relatively rare, one photo from December 2010 showing his grandmother’s partner, José Andrade, holding him at a Champions League match between Real Madrid and Auxerre. But as he approached school age, more and more began to be seen of him, most notably aged four when Ronaldo won the third of his five Ballons d’Or. In adorable scenes, Cristiano Jnr was filmed being introduced to Lionel Messi and gatecrashing the trophy presentation. Ronaldo told Cadena SER: “In the future, I can see myself presenting the Ballon d’Or to my son.”

Ronaldo also began posting pictures and videos of Cristiano Jnr to his tens of millions of followers on social media. They included one in August 2015 of the pair posing topless with white towels around their waists which Ronaldo captioned: “Like Dad like Son.”

Many similar pictures and videos have since followed presenting Cristiano Jnr as his father’s mini-me. They include a clip of penalty specialist Ronaldo challenging his son to score from the spot in three attempts or face “10 push-ups”. Despite the youngster netting at the third time of asking, Ronaldo ordered him to carry out the forfeit. “But I scored,” Cristiano Jnr protested, only for his father to reply: “Do them anyway. Come on, only 10.”

Life since has not always been fun and games for father and son. In April 2017, it emerged that Ronaldo had been accused of raping a woman in Las Vegas a year before Cristiano Jnr was born. Ronaldo, who has always denied any wrongdoing and was never prosecuted over the claim, was said to have reached an out-of-court settlement with his accuser.

Speaking in 2019 about the allegations, he told Good Morning Britain: “I remember one day I was at home in the living room with my girlfriend watching the television to see the news and they speak about ‘Cristiano Ronaldo this and that’. I listened to my kids coming down the stairs and I changed the channel because I was embarrassed. I just changed the channel for Cristiano Jnr not to see that they speak bad about his father about a very bad case.”

That case did not prevent Ronaldo winning the fourth of his five Champions League titles in June 2017, days before he became a father for the second time. After that year’s final, footage also emerged showing a Real-shirted Cristiano Jnr showcasing his dribbling skills in front of a 65,000-plus crowd at Cardiff’s Principality Stadium.

The following year, he joined Juventus Under-9s after his father’s move from Madrid to Turin and scored four goals on his debut. A few months later, Ronaldo posted a picture of his son posing next to a trophy.

In February 2020, Cristiano Jnr appeared to open his own Instagram account after an introductory video of him speaking in four languages was posted to @minicristianoronaldo2010. The account racked up almost 900,000 followers within 24 hours but later appeared to be deactivated. Instagram requires users to be at least 13 years old.

When Ronaldo made his dramatic return to Manchester United in the summer of 2021, Cristiano Jnr joined the club’s academy, where he played in the same team as Wayne Rooney’s son, Kai. While at United, he and his family were struck by a personal tragedy when his half-brother, Angel, died during childbirth in April 2022.

By then, Ronaldo’s United homecoming had begun to turn sour, culminating in his explosive Talk TV interview with Piers Morgan in November of that year. Speaking after the club suspended him for refusing to come off the bench in a Premier League game against Tottenham Hotspur, he said: “I remember arriving home and Cristiano see me and say, ‘Daddy do you not go to the game?’ I say, ‘No, because the club punish me with three days’. And then he said, ‘How are they going to punish you if you are the best player in the world and you’re not gonna play?’ I said, ‘No, I’m not gonna play because I have not been behave [sic]’. And he look at me like, ‘My Daddy not behave, what?’”

After briefly rejoining Real’s academy when an outcast Ronaldo went to train with the pair’s former club, Cristiano Jnr followed his father to Al Nassr. It was not long before footage emerged of the youngster playing and scoring for the club’s under-13 side, as well as copying his father’s “SIUUUU” celebration.

His father went on to lift the lid on their life in the Middle East during an appearance on the Rio Ferdinand Presents… podcast in August 2024. Making it clear it was not just his slim frame and shaggy mane of jet-black hair that his son had inherited, he said: “I was in the Red Sea a couple of days ago, I play every day padel. Me and Cristiano Jnr get mad [if one of us beats the other]. We don’t speak for like two days.” In February last year, Ronaldo spoke about the prospect of the pair one day playing for the same football team, telling Canal 11: “It’s not something that keeps me up at night, but I would like it. We’ll see. It’s more in his hands than in mine.”

Four months later came the youngster’s first Portugal call-up for a youth tournament in Croatia. Ronaldo posted a picture on social media of his son’s name on the national team squad list along with the message: “Proud of you, son.” He wrote similar after Cristiano Jnr made his debut from the bench in a 4-1 win against Japan in a game watched by Ronaldo Snr’s mother, Dolores Aveiro.

Scouts from United and several other top European clubs were also said to have been present. Cristiano Jnr failed to emulate his father’s feat of scoring on his under-15 debut but eventually found the net a few days later. The strike and celebration were marked with clips posted to the Portugal national team’s social media accounts that were captioned: “The first SIUUUU of Cristiano Jnr for Portugal!”

By the end of October, he was making his debut for the under-16 team, scoring on his second appearance, on November 1, in a 3-0 win over Wales. His father responded by posting footage of the strike to social media along with three fire emojis. Ronaldo also scored the 952nd goal of his own career the same day, which coincided with the 22nd anniversary of his first for United. He remains determined to reach the 1,000 mark.

After being named the Best Middle East Player at the Globe Soccer Awards in December, Ronaldo – by then the world’s first billionaire footballer – said: “You know what my goal is. I want to win trophies and I want to reach that number that you all know. I will reach that number for sure, if no injuries.”