Cristiano Ronaldo is one of the most recognisable sports stars in the world, but exactly how tall is he?
Footballers come in all shapes and sizes, but Ronaldo is positioned at the taller end of the spectrum.
GOAL takes a look at the Manchester United legend's height in feet and metres.
How tall is Cristiano Ronaldo?
Cristiano Ronaldo's height is 1.87 metres or, if you prefer imperial measurements, he stands six foot one inch (6ft 1in) tall.
That means he is of above average height in both the United Kingdom and the United States, where the average male height is 1.75 metres, or five foot nine inches (5ft 9in). Ronaldo is also above average in his native Portugal, where the average height is 1.71 metres (5ft 7.5 in).
Next Match
To give you an visual illustration of how tall Ronaldo is, his height is the equivalent of eight-and-a-half Premier League footballs stacked on top of one another or, to put it another way, half as tall as an African elephant.
The former Real Madrid star is around the same height as Matrix actor Keanu Reeves (6ft 1in) and Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers (6ft 2in).
GettyRonaldo is 17 centimetres taller than his perennial rival Lionel Messi, who stands at 1.7 metres or five foot six inches (5ft 6in), but shorter than Manchester United team-mate Paul Pogba, who is 1.91 metres (6ft 3in) tall.
His height has undoubtedly been an asset and has helped him gain an advantage over rivals in the air, with over 100 headed goals to his name across his career. As of November 2021, approximately a quarter of Ronaldo's international goals for Portugal had come from headers.
Of course, it must be noted that Ronaldo's heading ability is not just down to how tall he is, but boosted by the height he is able to jump off the ground.
After a Ronaldo header knocked Wales out of the semi-final of Euro 2016, then-Dragons boss Chris Coleman commented, "there’s not a defender on the planet who can defend against that type of explosion from a standing jump". In 2019, he reached a height of 8ft 5in to score a header for Juventus against Sampdoria, a feat even he could not believe as he asked Sky Italia: "Seriously, I jumped 2.56 metres? I didn’t realise that!"
However, while Ronaldo is above average height in a number of countries, he is by no means one of the tallest footballers in the world. He looks up at giants such as Italy goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma and Belgium's Thibaut Courtois, who are 1.96 metres (6ft 5in) and 2 metres (6ft 7in) respectively.
.jpg?auto=webp&format=pjpg&width=640&quality=60)
.jpg?auto=webp&format=pjpg&width=640&quality=60)