The Portuguese icon is one of the most recognisable faces in world football, and he seems to have borrowed his looks from his Gran
Cristiano Ronaldo’s mum has sparked an Internet frenzy after posting pictures of the footballer’s lookalike grannie.
Doting Dolores Aveiro went down memory lane by uploading a black and white photo of her mum onto her Instagram page.
And she got more than 20,000 likes in less than 24 hours with the pic of Maria Angela Spinola, who was born in Madeira in 1929 and moved to the Australian city of Perth in the nineties with her husband Jose Vivieros.
One fan wrote: “Cristiano in female version. They’re the spitting image of each other.”
Another added: “Are you seeing what I’m seeing or am I just tripping?”
Alexis Vage wrote: “Now we all now how Cristiano would look like if he was a girl.”
John Da Silva told local media three years ago when he was Portugal’s honorary consul in Perth that the connection was something their community was extremely proud of.
Cristiano’s grandparents set up home in the Perth suburb of Yangebup after leaving Madeira and several of their 13 children ended up in the area.
The former Manchester United star paid for his grandparents to fly to Germany to watch him lead Portugal to a respectable fourth place at the 2006 World Cup.
The couple’s son Alex, whose dad worked as a cleaner when he first moved to Australia, revealed how people didn’t believe him at first when he said he was the footballer’s uncle but word had “slowly gotten about.”
Mr Da Silva has said: ·The fact that we are connected with Portugal and Ronaldo, it is a really nice story.
“They are a beautiful family. Most of the Portuguese people in western Australia are very proud that we are so connected to a guy who plays such wonderful football.”
Ronaldo’s mum decided against moving to Australia because her son was showing signs of promise with boyhood club Sporting Lisbon.
Western Australia has a Portuguese population of around 8,000 and 85 per cent are from Cristiano’s native island of Madeira.
Spanish paper El Mundo reported that Cristiano’s maternal grandfather had died in 2015.
