3 pairs of namesakes who are all famous footballers
Footballers are famous all over the world because of their exploits on the football pitch and their names actually become brands in course of time. However, It is not very common for 2 footballers to have the same name. There have been players with similar names in Holland or Romania or Brazil but very rarely one comes across players who have absolutely identical names.
However, there have been some players, who actually share the same name or surname. In some of the cases, both the footballers sharing that name have gone on to become famous footballers. We would discuss 3 such famous pairs of namesakes of world football:
1. Ronaldo (Brazil) and Cristiano Ronaldo (Portugal):
Ronaldo of Brazil remains one of the finest strikers in world football. He is one of the few players to have won both the Golden Ball and the Golden Boot in World Cups. He has also featured in 2 World Cup-winning squads for Brazil.
Ronaldo was known for his exceptional physical strength, quick dribbling and rasping pace and was termed as 'O Phenomeno' or 'The Phenomeno' is the 1990s. He played for big clubs like PSV Eindhoven, Barcelona, Inter Milan and Real Madrid and scored 352 goals in 518 club matches, apart from winning the La Liga and Serie A titles. He also scored 62 international goals in 98 matches for the Brazilian national team. Ronaldo was the recipient of Ballon D’Or twice in his illustrious career.
Cristiano Ronaldo burst into world football when the senior Ronaldo was in the twilight of career. He was signed on by Manchester United in 2003 and spent 6 very successful seasons with them. He moved to Real Madrid in 2009 and became an even better player there.
Ronaldo has won every possible honour including the Champions League, La Liga and EPL titles in his career. He has also won the Ballon D’Or 5 times and scored 584 goals in 781 matches in his club career. He has also scored 85 goals in 154 matches for the Portuguese national team and won the Euro 2016 with them.