Cristiano Ronaldo suffered professional disappointment on Wednesday night when Portugal were knocked out the Confederations Cup – but his personal joy on Thursday surely more than made up for it.

Ronaldo met his newborn twins for the first time, and shared a sweet picture of him holding his son and daughter on social media.

It was captioned: ‘So happy to be able to hold the two new loves of my life’, as the Ballon D’Or winner looked on his children with love.

The birth of the as-yet-unnamed twins mean that Ronaldo is now a father-of-three, as they join their older brother, Cristiano junior.

Cristiano senior was only meeting the twins for the first time on Thursday as he had been away with Portugal at the Confederations Cup, where they were beaten in the semi-finals on penalties by Chile.

He confirmed their birth officially for the first time after that game via a Facebook post, following days of rumours.

By Matthew Smith for Mail