In 2020, Cristiano Ronaldo's chocolate sculpture, made by the Portuguese chocolatier, was exhibited at Carnival, in Ovar, the artist's birthplace, and was later taken to the Cristiano Ronaldo Museum, in Funchal, where it is still located.

The Roger Federer statue measures 1.85 metres, the same height as the athlete, and weighs 100 kilograms.

"With the experience I acquired with the creation of my first statue, Cristiano Ronaldo, I realized certain things that helped me not only to save more on chocolate, but also to gain time", explained Jorge Cardoso.

The chocolatier master finished the work which took him 250 hours over two intensive months.

“This work took a little less time than the first, due to experience, but it was still a very complex and detailed work”, said the Portuguese chocolate maker, stating that the great difficulty was the same as in his first work: the construction the face.

"Like what happened with the Ronaldo statue, the face continued to be my greatest difficulty in creating this work", says the Portuguese chocolate master, stressing that it is in the face that the beauty and realism of the sculpture can be found.

"This time I'm already prepared for criticism, in any case they will always exist. But one thing I'm sure of, currently the criticism will no longer affect me in the same way", he admitted.

When asked why he created the statue of the Swiss tennis player, the chocolatier explained that "it was time to work on a Swiss sports figure".

“Tennis player Roger Federer has a life story that I admire and relate to. He was a person who fought hard to get where he is professionally and this was the way I found to honour him," he said.

Ronaldo still a hit

The chocolate chosen by Jorge Cardoso was the same that was used to create his first life-size statue of Portuguese footballer Cristiano Ronaldo, who continues to draw audiences in Madeira.

"One of the ladies, who works at the CR7 museum, sent me a message recently to inform me that the statue was a real success at the museum", explained the master chocolatier to Lusa agency, adding that people are impressed with the realism of the work and praise it regularly.

It is dark chocolate, with 65% cocoa, from Venezuela. "Dark chocolate is much stronger than white or milk chocolate, hence my choice," he explained.

"I chose to make a statue with products that are all edible. Even the spray I used to preserve the chocolate is edible, as are the food colouring-based paints I used to paint the work", he pointed out.

The chocolate statue of the Swiss tennis player will be on display at the master chocolatier's shop in Freiburg from Saturday.

"The statue will be on display this Saturday in my shop in Freiburg, so that people can stop by to see it and take pictures," said the emigrant.