Cristiano Ronaldo wants to wish you Merry Christmas

Cristiano Ronaldo is a unique sports figure – one of the most memed personalities on the web. Part of this is due to the documentary produced by Juventus and Amazon Prime Video, All or Nothing, which highlighted the more personal, genuine, and especially unfiltered side of the Portuguese champion. Or rather, a version of Ronaldo emerged that combines constructed aspects with his natural obsession for perfection that we all know, revealing facets that have attracted attention and fueled his online image. In short, Cristiano Ronaldo is one of those players who has gone through several cringe-eras without ever making a problem of it. In fact, it is precisely in those more relaxed moments, away from the football field, that he has managed to become more appreciated than ever. It is during this phase that the trend of creating memes and edits featuring him, often related to his iconic self-celebratory celebrations, began. Perhaps, however, it would be more accurate to say that his career has been marked by embarrassing but also irresistibly funny moments. From the commercial for the eCampus university, which gave birth to the famous "Vi aspetto", to the video on the treadmill during the lockdown in which he celebrates with his "Siuuum", Ronaldo has never shied away from expressing himself in front of a camera.

But CR7 demonstrated a tendency for cringe well before creating the content we all know today. His specialty, especially during the years between his time at Manchester United and Real Madrid, were Christmas greeting videos. Among them, the most iconic remains without a doubt the one in duet with Ricardo Kakà: a video that highlights all of the Portuguese’s style, already unmistakable and destined to characterize him in the years to come. With an earring, gelled hair, a cardigan and shirt paired with a belt proudly on display, Ronaldo perfectly represented that aesthetic that would mark an era; it was even recreated the following year, this time with the Portuguese phenomenon alongside Marcelo. A similar video was replicated by Real Madrid during Ronaldo's last season with the club, before his move to Juventus. In the 2017/18 season, Marco Asensio replaced Kakà alongside CR7. This time, Ronaldo wore a total black shirt and a silver rosary, but the result was far from the chemistry he had with Kakà. The video seemed more like a conversation with an automated chatbot than an exchange between two real people. Asensio probably would have preferred to be somewhere else, while for Ronaldo, Christmas greeting videos had already become a boring and repetitive habit.

Cristiano Ronaldo moves to Juventus and, in 2021, becomes one of the stars of the club's Christmas video campaign. But even before the Juventus Xmas Reunion campaign, Ronaldo had already given us his best moments in other occasions. For example, with his appearance in the Christmas commercials for Meo, a Portuguese communication services company. The most memorable of these commercials is the one in which the Portuguese interprets a remake of Home Alone, playing the role of Macaulay Culkin. A commercial that was already quite bizarre in itself, made even more curious considering that the client in question was Meo, a commercial sponsor of Porto, a historic rival of Sporting Lisbon, the team Ronaldo supports and grew up in. Yet, the funniest Christmas greeting video with CR7 will always remain an autoproduced project, which would be almost impossible to explain in words. If there's one thing to say, it's that if so many video edits and memes with Ronaldo as the protagonist exist, it’s precisely because he wanted them himself.