Cristiano Ronaldo's Third Ballon d'Or a Reward for Obsession That Defines Him

Away from the swanky hotels and golden beaches of Madeira, that island jewel in the Portuguese crown, they say that if you’re born and raised here you fall into one of two distinct camps: one that never wants to leave, the other that can’t wait to get away.

Cristiano Ronaldo dos Santos Aveiro always knew which side of the fence he sat on. His friend, mentor and agent Jorge Manuel Mendes summed it up perfectly when speaking on a Sky Sports documentary on the player, The Making of Ronaldo.

“Football,” Mendes said, “was the ship that he climbed aboard to get out of Madeira.”

When you don’t have much, you have little to lose. Aged just 11, the country boy with a thick, Madeiran accent that would see him teased for years to come, left his home, his family and all he knew and loved, armed with an indecent, outrageous talent for playing football that was only surpassed by an obsessive motivation that never considered failure an option.

Sporting Lisbon was to be his new home. An old debt owed by Nacional to the side in the Portuguese capital was deemed settled by the handing over of the promising youngster.

This week in Zurich, there was a proverbial landslide during the glitzy, glamorous, annual back-slapping bonanza that is the Ballon d’Or awards ceremony, as Cristiano won the award for the third time by a distance and for the second year in a row.

It followed a year that saw his club side Real Madrid finally achieve their dream with their 10th European Cup title—La Decima—and a year that, at the end of last season, saw him win the Pichichi award for finishing top scorer in La Liga with 31 goals in 30 games, and a share of the European Golden Boot with Liverpool's Luis Suarez.

A 17-goal haul in just 11 Champions League games set Real Madrid on the road to Champions League triumph for the first time since 2002 and, despite battling with a knee injury, he has carried on that scintillating form this season, with an astonishing 25 goals in 14 appearances and five strikes in six European matches.

Much has been made of the differences between Cristiano and Leo Messi as they strive to be recognised as potentially the greatest of all time. To put things into perspective, it is worth remembering after Ronaldo’s victory that you have to go back as far as the year 2007 to find the last time anyone other than Cristiano or Messi lifted the Ballon d’Or, and that was when Brazilian playmaker Kaka won it while still at AC Milan.

In truth, Ronaldo and Messi are in many ways the same person. Both inhabit that planet called Elite and were blessed with a God-given talent, yet both know that in their rarified world, that is never, ever going to be enough.

Many are born with a great talent, but at the end of the day it is not just about your ability to dribble past people, to score goals, but more about the hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of hours spent playing with the ball; it’s about perspiration as much as inspiration; it’s about obsession.

An obsession that took Ronaldo as a 12- and 13-year-old to the gym while his peers either slept or played. An obsession that saw him reluctantly take a holiday during which he would still train, but with weights attached to his boots so his ankles would become stronger and so that, when he next played, would make him feel like he was floating on air.

That same passion and drive for honing his body would see a 14/15-year-old man-boy look you in the eye and, without a trace of irony nor a flicker of emotion, tell you that what he planned was nothing less than to become the greatest player in the world.

Many players wait for destiny to come and tap them on the shoulder. In pursuit of his dreams and ambitions, Cristiano went out and grabbed it by the throat.

And with great success comes even greater desire; more titles to win, more trophies to lift. Another Ballon d’Or will put him level with Messi on four awards. Publicly he will tell you it’s about the team, the common goal, but in truth, Ronaldo knows more than anyone that he made his own story.

Shaun Botterill/Getty Images

His trademark, slightly juvenile war cry that he came out with as he looked at the trophy on Monday was probably as much a cry of relief, the screaming equivalent of saying "job done," a confirmation of his greatest victory and of the way that he harnessed his immense talent.

An approbation for his beloved family—including his father, who always sat on the other side of the fence in Madeira, who never wanted to leave the "barrio" and who died aged just 52 of an alcohol-related disease just as his son was just beginning to establish himself as a true star at Manchester United.

How much will Ronaldo want to equal Lionel Messi's Ballon d'Or record next year? What do you think?