The very moment it all clicked for Cristiano Ronaldo, by Gary Neville

"He just seemed to mature overnight and his body completely changed."

Cristiano Ronaldo has reinvented himself for the second time in his career in recent years. The Real Madrid forward has become a supreme goal poacher, deciding games and winning trophies, making brilliant interventions all the while. Before that, Ronaldo was a powerhouse, an unstoppable, ruthless goal scorer, capable of scoring from any angle, and one of the best athletes the sport has ever seen. But before Ronaldo reached his peak, he was a tricky winger, often accused of showboating and lacking an end-product. It may seem strange now, but between 2004 and 2006, Wayne Rooney was deemed by many to be a greater talent than the Madrid forward. However, Ronaldo's game reached new levels over a decade ago and continued to rise and rise as each season passed. According to Gary Neville, Ronaldo's change was sudden. Neville also admitted having doubts about Ronaldo when the player joined Manchester United in 2003.

"In his early years at United I didn't think he'd reach the heights he has," the former United defender told Sky Sports. "But after 2005/06 his body completely transformed from being quite thin and skinny to being completely different, as too did his goal-scoring, decision making and maturity. Once you saw him playing at that level then you thought 'wow'."

Neville reckons the summer of 2006 was the moment Ronaldo's game went up a level. In the World Cup quarter-final that year, the Portuguese forward scored the winning penalty in the shoot-out against England, and was demonised by elements of English press for his part in Rooney's red card. Rooney stamped on Ricardo Carvalho, and was rightly sent off. However, after protesting to the referee and winking to his teammates on the Portugal bench, Ronaldo was heavily criticised. Neville said Ronaldo returned to England a more mature person, and ready to become the best player in the Premier League.

"That 2006 to 2008 period was unbelievable," he said. "Coming back from the 2006 World Cup was the moment I remember him completely changing. Obviously there was the big incident with Wayne Rooney so he came as someone who was hated nationally and had a bad reputation with the newspapers.  "He just seemed to mature overnight and his body completely changed. It was in that instance where I felt the big change was; it wasn't a particular moment in a football match."

Ryan Giggs also praised Ronaldo's professionalism and singled out his goal against Porto in 2008 as one of "three or four times on a pitch where I've gone 'wow'."

"The most amazing thing is his goalscoring, it's unbelievable," Giggs said. "To turn from a winger who used to beat men, and more often than not make goals rather than score, to have a goalscoring record that he's got is unbelievable."