Ronaldo, Neymar & Alaba take the ice bucket challenge

Firstly, for anyone that is wondering exactly what the ice bucket challenge is, as the name suggests it involves soaking oneself (or getting someone to do it) with an ice cold bucket of water. The trend is often called “ALS ice bucket challenge” (the prefix referring to ALS Association, a non-profit organisation). The basic challenge involves either pouring the bucket within 24 hours of being nominated or donating to charity. Though it doesn’t always land up that way, the challenge has gone viral and helped raise awareness for ALS. After the popularity of this act, ALS has raised $160,000 in ten days as opposed to $14,480 during the same period, a year back.

Along with a whole host of celebrities, many footballers have also taken the challenge and nominated their fellow professionals. Darren Fletcher did so recently and nominated Cristiano Ronaldo; the Portuguese superstar accepted as seen in this video:

It isn’t quite clear from the video who Ronaldo nominated, and the chain is difficult to keep track off but Ronaldo’s team-mate, Marcelo, also took the challenge after being nominated to do so by Canadian women’s soccer player Kaylyn Kyle. He accepted, with Ronaldo performing the pouring act, and nominated Neymar (alongwith Brazilian personalities Paulo Gustavo & Luciano Huck), see below:

Marcelo’s Brazilian team-mate Neymar accepted his challenge, and went on to nominate Robinho, Zuniga (the man who injured him, glad to see that statement being sent-out) and Niall Horan of One Direction.

Though this doesn’t follow the chain made above, David Alaba also took up the challenge after being nominated by fellow footballers, Anis Ben Hatira & Alexander Aschauer. The Austrian actually had a huge container as opposed to just a bucket poured over him by his Bayern team-mates, and went on to nominate Jerome Boateng, Franck Ribery & Mario Gotze.

After all the pointless crap that goes viral, nice to see something meaningful doing the rounds.