Cristiano Ronaldo has recently taken a picture next to his newest statue at the CR7 museum in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The bust shows the Portuguese star in a full Al-Nassr kit, but it didn’t seem to impress fans that much.
While the face actually looks a lot like the former Real Madrid superstar, the statue has a different haircut to the one that Ronaldo has been using in the last few years.
Many believe it depicts a younger Ronaldo but with his current kit. “They took Sporting Lisbon Cristiano and placed him in an Al-Nassr jersey,” a user wrote on X. “Bro don’t get have haircut since 2009,” another fan added.
Fans compare Ronaldo’s statue to Messi, Dybala, Tom Brady
But many fans have also claimed this statue looks more like other superstars. Some of them joked about seeing an early career Lionel Messi, while others suggest the hairstyle and face is similar to that of Paulo Dybala.
“That statue like CR7, Messi , and Dybala combined, look cool also,” an X user tweeted. “It looks more like Messi than him at first glimpse … The Saudi Statue looks like half Messi and Half Ronaldo. … Bro got the same height as Messi. … That looks more like Dybala. … The statue looks like Messi without a beard,” were some of the reactions on Twitter (X).
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But people not only compared the statue to soccer players. Other users also said it looks like NFL legend Tom Brady. “They mixed Tom Brady with CR7’s face. … Looked like Bucs Tom Brady.”
To be fair, many users liked the statue though. “Which 1 is the statue I’m seing 3 Ronaldos here. … Beautiful statue. … It’s definitely better than the one they have in Madeira. Unless they changed that one.”
The infamous bust of Ronaldo in 2017
No matter how many monuments are created in honor of the Portuguese superstar, it’s safe to say no one will draw so much criticism as the one revealed at Madeira Airport in 2017.
Statue of Cristiano Ronaldo at the ceremony at Madeira Airport on March 29, 2017 in Santa Cruz, Madeira, Portugal.
The bust looked nothing like Ronaldo, and 15 months later, it was replaced. “When Ronaldo is happy he has that spontaneous smile, and [those] who know him know that he doesn’t have an uniform smile,” Emanuel Santos, who created the infamous statue, told Bleacher Report. “So there it is, if it didn’t end up 100 percent like him, people have to understand that art is a way to express oneself that contains emotions. It’s not a precise science.
“I liked the result and was really proud of it. And if I had to do it again, I would make everything exactly the same,” added Santos. But in March 2018, he created a second version which was regarded as a significant improvement.
