What does it take to succeed at the the highest level? Natural talent, yes, but also the desire and determination to improve every day.
Cristiano Ronaldo is the epitome of that and continues to reap the rewards of his hard endeavour. None more so than on Sunday night when he wrote his name into the record books to become the all-time leading goalscorer in footballing history.
His strike for Juventus against Napoli in the Supercoppa Italia final moved him on to 760 career goals and counting.
His goal has moved him above Josef Bican - with the Austrian-Czech striker scoring 759 goals between 1931 and 1955.
Despite being 35 - he turns 36 on February 5 - Ronaldo has shown little sign of slowing down, instead refining his game from a dynamic all-round superstar into the ultimate goal machine.
In 2018 he insisted that he actually has a 'biological age' of 23, and claimed 'I can keep playing until I'm 41'.
He may not be as fast as he once was - halting the inevitable passage of time remains beyond his powers, but he has taken steps to make sure he is always extracting as much as he can out of himself.
And as we pay homage to record-breaking Ronaldo, Sportsmail has gone through the archives to see how he transformed his body into the Portuguese powerhouse that we are now accustomed to.
