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These boots were worn by Cristiano Ronaldo during the Fifa World Cup “South Africa 2010”. In the group stage of the World Cup, he was named man of the match in all three matches, against Ivory Coast, North Korea and Brazil. His only goal of the tournament came in their 7–0 rout of North Korea, which marked his first international goal in 16 months. Portugal’s World Cup ended with a 1–0 loss against eventual champions Spain in the round of 16.
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Ronaldo scored seven goals in qualifications for Euro 2012, including two strikes against Bosnia and Herzegovina in the play-offs, to send Portugal into the tournament, where they were drawn in a “group of death”. In the last group stage game against the Netherlands, Ronaldo scored twice to secure a 2–1 win. He scored a header in the quarter-final against the Czech Republic to give his team a 1–0 win. In both games against the Netherlands and the Czech Republic he was named man of the match. After the semi-finals against Spain ended scoreless, Portugal were eliminated in the penalty shoot-out. Ronaldo did not take a penalty as he had been slated to take the unused fifth slot. Ronaldo’s own teammate, Nani, said that Ronaldo “demanded” to take the last penalty. As the joint top scorer with three goals, alongside five other players, he was again included in the team of the tournament.
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As his reputation grew from his time at Manchester United, Ronaldo signed many sponsorship deals for consumer products, including e.g. sportswear (he wears Nike CR7 boots), soft drinks, clothing, automotive lubricants, financial services, electronics, computer video games, and much more. Ronaldo has established a strong online presence; the most popular sportsperson on social media, he counted 158 million total followers across Facebook, Twitter and Instagram by June 2015. As of June 2015, he has the world’s biggest Facebook fanbase with 103 million followers: he became the first sportsperson to reach 50 million followers in August 2010, and in October 2014, he became the first sportsperson, and the second person after Shakira, to reach 100 million followers. He is also the most-followed athlete on Twitter with 37.8 million followers as of September 2015, and is the most-followed footballer on Instagram with 33.6 million followers as of October 2015. Ronaldo has released two mobile apps: in December 2011, he launched an iPhone game called Heads Up with Cristiano, created by developer RockLive, and in December 2013, he launched Viva Ronaldo, a dedicated social networking website and mobile app. Computer security company McAfee produced a 2012 report ranking footballers by the probability of an internet search for their name leading to an unsafe website, with Ronaldo’s name first on the list.
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At the start of the 2013–14 season, Cristiano signed a new contract that extended his stay by three years to 2018, with a salary of €17 million net, making him briefly the highest-paid player in football. He was joined at the club by winger Gareth Bale, whose world record transfer fee of €100 million surpassed the fee Madrid had paid for Ronaldo four years prior. Together with striker Karim Benzema, they formed an attacking trio popularly dubbed “BBC”, an acronym of Bale, Benzema, and Cristiano.
