Siuuu (Cristiano Ronaldo's Celebration)

Origin: Miami, 2013

Cristiano Ronaldo first performed the celebration in 2013, during a preseason friendly between Real Madrid and Chelsea at the Hard Rock Stadium in Miami. He scored with a header, sprinted towards the corner flag, leapt, spun in mid-air to show the name on the back of his shirt, and landed hard with his legs wide and both arms driven down.

The choreography has barely changed since: jump, half-turn, arms up on the way, arms slammed down on landing — and, timed to the landing, a shouted “Siuuu.”

What “Siu” actually means

Nothing exotic. It is a compressed, drawn-out “si” — Spanish for “yes” — stretched into one explosive syllable. Ronaldo was playing in Spain when the celebration was born, and the word is simply an affirmation delivered at maximum volume.

He has said relatively little about designing it, describing it instead in terms of what it turned into: “It seems to have grown into its own global phenomenon, and I love when I see other players doing it.”

How the shout became a sound

The celebration was famous long before the audio was. A widely circulated moment came at the 2014 FIFA Ballon d’Or ceremony, where Ronaldo let the shout out on stage; FIFA’s YouTube upload of January 13, 2015 has since collected 4.7 million-plus views.

Clip channels did the rest.

• September 21, 2016: a compilation from YouTuber Raauulmg went on to pass 10 million views.
• April 2020: a remix swapping in different sound effects reached 6.5 million views.
• April 3, 2021: another variation collected 5.8 million views within a year.
• January 22, 2022: the shout began appearing on completely unrelated videos as a standalone audio sting, with one anime clip using it picking up more than 5,700 reactions.

Meaning and usage

The Siu now works three ways at once.

• As a celebration: imitated on pitches at every level, from professionals paying tribute to children in car parks. It turns up in charity matches, youth football and video games.
• As an audio meme: pasted over anything triumphant — or, more often, anything disastrous, where the mismatch is the joke.
• As a written word: “SIUUUU” typed into a chat as pure celebration, with the number of Us doing the work of an exclamation mark.

Why it travelled so far

Goal celebrations rarely leave football. Bebeto’s baby-rocking gesture at the 1994 World Cup, Jurgen Klinsmann’s dive and Peter Crouch’s robot are all remembered, but none of them became a sound. The Siu did, and sound travels: it needs no footage, no context and no knowledge of the sport, which is why it survives being pasted onto a video of a cat.

It also belongs to a rare category of sports meme that is entirely positive. Where Crying Jordan marks defeat and McKayla Is Not Impressed marks disappointment, the Siu is unambiguous joy — a large part of why it has outlasted both in everyday use.