How Tall Is Cristiano Ronaldo?
Cristiano Ronaldo is a world-renowned soccer player who currently plays for the Saudi Professional League club Al Nassr. While athletes like LeBron James and Patrick Mahomes may have more name recognition in America, Ronaldo is one of the wealthiest and most famous athletes in the world. This often leaves his fans wondering many things about the global superstar. One question many have is, how tall is Cristiano Ronaldo?
Read on to learn more about the 38-year-old’s height, amazing vertical jumping ability, and whether height even matters in soccer.
How tall is Cristiano Ronaldo?
Cristiano Ronaldo is nearly 6-foot-2 standing precisely 6 feet, 1.62 inches, according to Heightpedia.
That breaks down to 73.62 inches tall or 1.87 meters tall if you’re using the metric system.
Where does this put him in relation to most players? Top End Sports compared the physical sizes of the players at the 2018 World Cup. While Ronaldo fell well short of being the tallest player — that honor went to 6-foot-7 Croatian goalie Lovre Kalinić — he was taller than the average height of 6 feet.
Of course, height on its own won’t get you anything. To stand out on the pitch, you need to have the athletic ability to go with it.
For soccer players, height is especially helpful when attempting headers, but they still need to possess a better-than-average vertical leap. And Ronaldo definitely has that skill covered.
Ronaldo has an extraordinary vertical leap
It seems like Cristiano Ronaldo can do anything on the pitch. This includes being an expert header of the ball. In one case, Ronaldo showed his almost otherworldly ability to jump higher than (almost) anyone else.
According to The Football Overs, Ronaldo’s highest documented leap took place during a 2019 Serie A match in Italy.
Ronaldo was playing for the Italian powerhouse Juventus at the time, and his team was taking on Sampdoria. He scored a goal on a header in that game, where he jumped a jaw-dropping 2.56 meters in the air before heading it in for a goal.
This gave him a vertical leap of a whopping 28 inches (or 71 centimeters).
That stood as not only a personal best but also the record for the highest recorded jump in Serie A history. The latter part of that is no longer true, as Napoli’s Victor Osimhen scored in February 2023 against Spezia while jumping 2.58 meters.
So, while everyone knows Ronaldo is a phenomenal soccer player and that he’s a bit taller than the average player, this still leaves one outstanding question: Is height even an important part of the sport?
Does height matter in soccer?
When it comes to height, the size of great players varies.
Some of the best players in history have ranged in height from the 5-foot-5 Diego Maradona to the 6-foot-5 Zlatan Ibrahimovic. Cristiano Ronaldo is obviously on the taller side of this equation, but he is still incredibly athletic and nimble for his size.
Height doesn’t matter nearly as much in soccer as it does in sports like basketball or American football, where additional inches often give a player a significant physical and competitive advantage.
That said, there are a few positions in soccer where height helps, and we often see the taller players play. Central defenders, goalkeepers, and some strikers are the players who are most likely to be 6 feet tall or bigger. In the upper echelons of professional soccer these days, goalkeepers especially are routinely 6-foot-2 or taller.
On the flip side, shorter players often find being closer to the ground is an advantage at other positions. Central midfielders, wingers, and different styles of forwards excel at carrying the ball because of their smaller stature.
In the end, soccer is one of the major sports where height matters the least. Top players around the world come in all shapes and sizes.
However, the truth is that if you designed the ideal soccer player from scratch, you couldn’t go wrong with a player who resembes Cristiano Ronaldo.
