 |
|
August 23, 2025
Ronaldo does not rely on chance. The image is familiar: him stepping out on the pitch, shirt immaculate, eyes narrowed as though the crowd and the cameras are only background. What you don’t see, unless you search, is the thousands of hours spent rehearsing the same movement until it became less a skill and more a habit. The bicycle kick, the free kick, even the way he runs, all honed by a man unwilling to leave anything to luck.
The comparison with our own lives is obvious, but worth drawing out. If casinos offer free craps as a way of testing your strategy before you risk your money, Cristiano Ronaldo offers the reminder that practice without consequence is not wasted time but the bedrock of real achievement. He is the man who kept repeating the drill long after training had finished, the figure still sweating when the floodlights dimmed. You do not have to play football to recognise the lesson in this.
Cristiano Ronaldo - Secrets to success
There is something lonely in practice. The crowd is absent, the noise is gone, and only the repetitive thud of ball against boot remains. Ronaldo understood that what looks dull to the outside eye is in fact where the victory begins. That one pass delivered perfectly, hundreds of times, becomes the reason a goal feels so natural in a match.
Applied to daily life, it means being willing to work through the details when no one is watching. Writing out figures until you understand them. Rehearsing a presentation to an empty room. Trying strategies in low-stakes settings before anyone else notices. The glory never arrives without the hours behind it.
For Ronaldo, the smallest margins mattered. He refined his diet, sharpened his training routines, demanded more from himself when others might have been content. It is not a question of obsession for its own sake but an understanding that the human body, like the human mind, bends to what you feed it.
In our own world, these margins show up in quieter ways. Five minutes spent preparing rather than rushing. Choosing patience when the impulse is to gamble everything at once. It can feel trivial in the moment, but the collection of small decisions builds into a result that looks inevitable from the outside. In truth, it is anything but.
Even Ronaldo has missed penalties. He has faced defeats in tournaments, walked off pitches with the weight of expectation unfulfilled. Yet his response was never to shrug and leave it there. He folded failure into the process, using it as a tool. The miss meant more hours on the training pitch. The loss meant greater focus the following season.
In daily life and in gambling alike, the setbacks are unavoidable. The dice will land against you, the wheel will spin another way, the job application will go unanswered. What matters is whether you use these moments as reasons to refine your approach or as excuses to abandon it altogether.
The trouble with training is that it lacks glamour. We prefer the spectacle, the winning goal, the lifting of a trophy. But Ronaldo is proof that the glamour arrives only because of the plain work that preceded it. Endless stretches, endless drills, endless recovery routines that would bore a casual observer.
That dull repetition is mirrored in financial habits, in saving pennies when pounds feel more exciting, in refusing to chase every temptation that appears. It is also mirrored in the way you might play through practice hands of a casino game without spending a coin, resisting the itch for instant return. It looks tedious in the moment but pays in confidence later.
Ronaldo’s career has lasted longer than most not by accident but by design. He did not treat success as a brief burst of fireworks but as something that required maintenance. Every season was another chance to prove the habits worked, to refine them again.
Longevity in gambling, or in life’s many risks, means treating each attempt as part of a longer line. The impulse to win everything in one night, or to solve every problem in a single attempt, is what breaks most people. A slower approach, rooted in method, is what lets you stay at the table long after others have gone.
The sight of Ronaldo celebrating a goal might suggest arrogance, but beneath it lies a confidence built from preparation. He knows the hours he has put in. He trusts his own process. That trust reads as confidence to the outsider, but it is something sturdier.
It is the kind of confidence that lets you sit calmly at a table, rolling dice without panic, not because you think luck will always favour you but because you know your choices are thought through. Outside of the casino, it means moving through life with a sureness that has nothing to do with bluster and everything to do with being prepared.
Ronaldo has turned down distractions. Parties, temptations, even indulgences that many athletes give into lightly. His refusal is not joyless but disciplined. He understands that every yes is also a no to something else, and so he chose carefully.
This discipline is perhaps the most transferable of all. It means not chasing a bad bet after a loss, not saying yes to every whim, not giving in to the pull of immediacy. In politics, in gambling, in family life, the ability to decline has more weight than the ability to indulge.
Ronaldo is famous for rituals. The order of his stretches, the rhythm of his warm-up, even the way he places the ball for a free kick. To the outsider it might look like superstition, but it is in fact the comfort of routine. The body learns, the mind steadies, and the result is greater freedom in the moment of performance.
Ritual in our own lives does the same. The morning routine that sets the tone, the careful review before spending, the calm pause before making a decision. It is not a cage but a structure that frees you to act with confidence.
Cristiano Ronaldo next game for Al Nassr is on August 23, against Al Ahli, for the Saudi Super Cup. You can watch Al Nassr vs Al Ahli, Real Oviedo vs Real Madrid, Levante vs Barça, Manchester City vs Tottenham, Arsenal vs Leeds and Brentford vs Aston Villa, all matches provided from our live football game pages.
Al Nassr next game:
Al Nassr vs Al Ahli kick-off time (23-08-2025):
Beijing (China) | UTC/GMT+7: 20:00
India (New Delhi) | UTC/GMT+4.30: 17:30
Saudi Arabia (Riyadh) | UTC/GMT+2: 15:00
Spain (Madrid) | UTC/GMT+1: 14:00
Portugal and England (Lisbon/London) | UTC/GMT+0: 13:00
Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) | UTC/GMT-3: 10:00
New York (United States) | UTC/GMT-4: 09:00
Los Angeles (United States) | UTC/GMT-7: 06:00
Sources: ronaldo7.net / medium.com / sportbible.com
