On June 12, 2004, Cristiano Ronaldo, a 19-year-old soccer star project with number 17 on his shirt, made his debut in the Euro Cup. played in his country in a Portugal-Greece (1-2). On June 18, 2024 he will step onto the grass in his sixth European Championship, the all-time record. Between both dates Christian He is still a footballer even though he has changed Manchester United for Al-Nassr, but the world around him is not the same. The transformations are spectacular.
The gold ball
In 2004 Cristiano was a dreamer. The Ballon d’Or was in his desire. That season the trophy went to the Ukrainian Andriy Shevchenko, a rocket with a nose for goal in the ranks of Milan. Behind him, Deco (Porto) and Ronaldinho (Barcelona). The Golden Boot was won by Thierry Henry, who was breaking records at Arsenal.
The Champions League dismantled the pools with the victory of Porto of Mourinho against Morientes’ Monaco, who had eliminated Real Madrid. In the Spanish competition, predictions were broken. The League went to Rafa BenÃtez’s Valencia battleship and the Cup went to VÃctor Muñoz’s Zaragoza on the bench with David Villa up front who defeated Real Madrid 3-2 in the final in Montjüic.
Messi, Alcaraz, Bellingham…
The adventures of that year also left the premiere of another great one that would run parallel to the Portuguese’s career. In 2004 Messi’s official debut would take place. with the Barça shirt in a Catalan derby against Espanyol in Montjüic when he replaced Deco in the second half. Simeone was a player for Atlético de Madrid, where he was completing his second stage.
The twists and turns of the calendar are shocking. While Cristiano Ronaldo made his debut in a Euro Cup Carlos Alcaraz and Bellingham were one year old. Mbappé was much older, he was five years old. De Lamine Yamal It is only known that he did not yet haggle because he had not been born.
In the Olympics, with the Athens Games as the supreme date, the swimmer Michael Phelps reigned, winning eight medals, six of them gold, in the Athenian competition. The United States ‘Dream Team’ experienced an embarrassment with a team with few stars led by Tim Duncan that was eliminated by Argentina. In that squad a boy was waiting unsuccessfully for minutes on the bench, LeBron James.
The first Federer-Nadal and the Pistons
That special year was also the destination of the first Roger Federer-Rafa Nadal match, with victory for the Swiss (6-3, 6-3) in Miami. The Spaniard, still in training, came to the fore with a victory in the Davis Cup final against the North American Andy Roddick.
The 2004 Tour de France was won by North American Lance Armstrong when his name still radiated charisma. It was later discovered that he was an apostle of fraud. That edition of the French round is left without a winner after his triumphs were taken away. Roland Garros He met two winners who never repeated in a major tournament: the Argentine Gastón Gaudio and the Russian Anastasiya Myskina.
In the NBA the champions were the Detroit Pistonsthe same franchise that is now sad, after defeating the big favorites, the Lakers who paid for the accumulation of stars with Kobe Bryant, Shaquille O’Neal, Karl Malone and Gary Payton.
Netflix, the fashionable mobile phone, FIFA 2004…
In the technological section, the planet is taking a different path in terms of uses and customs. They didn’t exist Twitter-X, Instagram or Tik Tok, but it was the date for the birth of Facebook, the social network that changed the way we look for friends. In 2004 Netflix, Founded in 1997, it was dedicated to DVDs.
The Apple ‘toy’ that impacted the world was the iPod, the digital music player that took up the same space as a matchbox. The Iphone did not exist at a time when the fashionable mobile phone was the Nokia 3310a model that could be seen on any table.
The competition in Video game consoles also had an important moment because it was the year the Nintendo DS was launched.. It is estimated that two decades later, 155 million units of that platform have been sold.
One of the most popular games in the world, ‘FIFA 2004’ had images of Del Piero, Henry and Ronaldinho on its cover. The curiosity is that the Brazilian was wearing the Brazil jersey while his teammates were wearing the Juventus and Arsenal uniforms.
In 2004, music brought about the triumph of ‘BulerÃa’, David Bisbal’s album, the best-selling in Spain. Further away, in Hollywood, it was imposed ‘The Lord of the Rings’ at the Oscars. Charlize Theron and Tim Robbins They were the winners for their performances in ‘Monster’ and ‘Mystic River’.