Ronaldinho de Assis Moreira
Ronaldo de Assis Moreira, commonly known as Ronaldinho or Ronaldinho Gaúcho, is a Brazilian professional footballer and ambassador for Spanish club FC Barcelona. Ronaldinho has played mainly as an attacking midfielder, but has also been deployed as a forward or as a winger. He played the bulk of his career at European clubs Paris Saint-Germain, Barcelona and Milan as well as playing for the Brazilian national team. Regarded as one of the greatest players of his generation, Ronaldinho has won two FIFA World Player of the Year awards and a Ballon d’Or. He is renowned for his technical skills and creativity; due to his agility, pace and dribbling ability, as well as his use of tricks, overhead kicks, no-look passes and accuracy from free-kicks. Ronaldinho is regarded as one of the greatest and most skilful players of his generation. Due to his ability to score and create goals, he is capable of playing in several offensive positions, on either wing or in a central position.Throughout his career, he has been deployed as a forward, a winger, although he usually plays as a classic number 10 in an attacking midfield role. Despite primarily being a creative player, he is an accurate finisher with either foot, both from inside and outside the penalty area, and is also a free-kick and penalty kick specialist.Throughout his career, Ronaldinho has been praised in particular for his technical skills and creativity; due to his pace, acceleration, agility, balance, ball control, and dribbling ability, he is capable of beating players when undertaking individual runs, often using feints in one on one situations. Among his repertoire of moves, Ronaldinho is one of the best exponents of the “Elastico”, a move he learned by watching videos of one of his idols, the 1970s Brazilian star Rivelino. ESPN has described Ronaldinho as being “skillful by nature, his tricks are unparalleled and he is wonderful with the ball at his feet. One of the coolest players in pressure situations” and a “fast, brash, skilful, tricky, an uninhibited playmaker” who provides “a mix of goals, assists, skills and a large repertoire of crafty moves”.Former Portugal midfield playmaker Rui Costa has said of his vision and passing ability: “There are not many players who can offer goalscoring passes like he can. He is just marvellous. He is a rare case of an assist man who can provide the ball from anywhere.”
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This shirt was worn by Ronaldinho during the first half of the Serie A game between Milan and Catania which took place in Milan, “Giuseppe Meazza” Stadium, on April 11th 2010. Milan draw 2-2 and at the end of the first half Ronaldinho swapped his shirt with the Catania’s player Sebastian Alvarez who auctioned it. Ronaldinho’s second season did not begin on a high note, but he soon rediscovered his form and was arguably Milan’s best player of the season. Newly appointed coach Leonardo changed his role from a central attacking midfielder to the left side of midfield, with Alexandre Pato on the right, in an offensive 4–3–3 formation. On 10 January 2010, Ronaldinho scored two goals against Juventus in an away match, sealing a 3–0 victory for Milan. In the following match, against Siena on 17 January, Ronaldinho scored his first hat-trick for Milan when he converted a penalty kick, scored with a header from a corner and finished with a strike into the top right corner from 20 yards out. The Estado De São Paulo newspaper declared, “Ronaldinho revives his golden years.” On 16 February, Ronaldinho played against Manchester United in the Champions League. He scored early in the game at the San Siro to give Milan the lead. Milan ended up losing the game 3–2, with a goal from Paul Scholes and two goals from Wayne Rooney. Ronaldinho finished the season as the assists leader of Serie A. On a less positive note, however, he missed three penalties in the domestic season to add to one botched kick the previous season. Ronaldinho ended the Serie A campaign scoring two goals against Juventus; Luca Antonini opened the scoring and Milan went on to win 3–0 in Leonardo’s last game in charge. A funny story about this shirt, described directly by Alvarez is available below.
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Ronaldinho has had endorsements with many companies, including Nike, Pepsi, Coca-Cola, EA Sports, Gatorade and Danone. One of the world’s highest paid players, in 2006 he earned over $19 million from endorsements. Having endorsed Pepsi for much of his career and appeared in commercials with David Beckham, Thierry Henry and Lionel Messi, Ronaldinho signed a deal with Coca-Cola in 2011, however this was terminated in July 2012 after he was caught drinking Pepsi in a news conference. Ronaldinho has featured in EA Sports’ FIFA video game series, appearing on the cover of FIFA Football 2004, FIFA 06, FIFA 07, FIFA 08 and FIFA 09.At the beginning of his career Ronaldinho signed a lucrative 10-year deal with sportswear company Nike (wearing Nike Tiempo R10 boots designed for him). He has appeared in Nike commercials, including the 2002 “Secret Tournament” commercial (branded “Scopion KO”) directed by Terry Gilliam. His 2005 Nike advertisement, where he is given a new pair of boots and then proceeds to juggle a football and appears to repeatedly volley it against the crossbar of a goal and recover it without the ball touching the ground, went viral on YouTube, becoming the site’s first video to reach one million views. A wax sculpture of Ronaldinho was unveiled at Madame Tussauds Hong Kong in December 2007. Ronaldinho has had an official role with UNICEF, the United Nations Children’s Fund, since February 2006.[149] In 2011, he was recruited by the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS to promote awareness among young people of the disease and how to avoid it. In March 2015, Ronaldinho was the sixth most popular sportsperson on Facebook, behind Cristiano Ronaldo, Messi, Beckham, Neymar and Kaká, with 31 million Facebook fans.
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These boots were worn by Ronaldinho in 2006. They are the iconic Nike Tiempo custom made for the player. In particular aside from the R10 embroidered on tongues and his name embroidered on sides, the thing that makes them so special and different also from any other Nike sponsored players is that these boots have a double stitching reinforcement on top made especially for Ronaldinho. In June 2003, the newly elected FC Barcelona president Joan Laporta stated, “I said we would lead Barça to the forefront of the footballing world, and for that to occur we had to sign one of these three players, David Beckham, Thierry Henry or Ronaldinho.” Henry remained with Arsenal, and Laporta then promised to bring Beckham to the club, but following his transfer to Real Madrid, Barcelona entered the running for Ronaldinho and outbid Manchester United for his signature in a €30 million deal. Ronaldinho made his Barcelona debut in a friendly against Juventus at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts on 27 July, with coach Frank Rijkaard stating post match, “He has something special every time he touches the ball. He scored his first competitive goal in La Liga on 3 September 2003 against Sevilla at 1.30 a.m. local time, in a match that kicked off at five minutes past midnight. By the end of the year 2005, Ronaldinho had started to accumulate a host of personal awards. He won the inaugural FIFPro World Player of the Year in September 2005, in addition to being included in the 2005 FIFPro World XI, and being named the 2005 European Footballer of the Year. Also that year, Ronaldinho was voted the FIFA World Player of the Year for the second consecutive year. He became only the third player to win the award more than once, after three-time winners Ronaldo and Zinedine Zidane. His domination as the world’s best footballer was undisputed as he also won the prestigious Ballon d’Or for the only time in his career. On 19 November, Ronaldinho scored twice as Barcelona defeated Real Madrid 3–0 on the road in the first leg of El Clásico. After he sealed the match with his second goal, Madrid fans paid homage to his performance by applauding, so rare a tribute only Diego Maradona had ever been granted previously as a Barcelona player at the Santiago Bernabéu Stadium. Ronaldinho stated, “I will never forget this because it is very rare for any footballer to be applauded in this way by the opposition fans.” The season is considered one of the best in Ronaldinho’s career as he was an instrumental part of Barcelona’s first Champions League title in 14 years. After winning their group convincingly, Barcelona faced Chelsea in the round of 16 for a rematch of the previous year. Ronaldinho scored a decisive goal in the second leg, going past three Chelsea defenders on the edge of the penalty area before beating the goalkeeper, sealing Barcelona’s qualification to the next round. He also contributed one goal in Barcelona’s elimination of Benfica in the quarter-finals with a 2–0 home victory. After a 1–0 semi-final aggregate win over Milan, in which Ronaldinho assisted the series’ only goal by Ludovic Giuly, Barcelona progressed to the Champions League Final, which they won on 17 May 2006 with a 2–1 beating of Arsenal. Two weeks earlier, Barcelona had clinched their second-straight La Liga title with a 1–0 win over Celta de Vigo, giving Ronaldinho his first career double. Throughout the season, Ronaldinho linked up with prolific Cameroonian striker Samuel Eto’o in attack, providing a number of assists to the 34 goal striker; Ronaldinho’s pass also put Eto’o through on goal in the Champions League Final from which he was brought down by Arsenal goalkeeper Jens Lehmann who was sent off. Ronaldinho finished the season with a career-best 26 goals, including seventeen in La Liga and seven in the Champions League, and was chosen for the UEFA Team of the Year for the third consecutive time and was named the 2005–06 UEFA Club Footballer of the Year. He was named in the six man shortlist for the 2006 Laureus World Sportsman of the Year, and was selected in the FIFA World XI.
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As it happened for Ronaldo Nazario with “R9”, Nike dedicated to Ronaldinho his own sign called “R10”. The R10 collections were exclusive Nike collections dedicated to Ronaldinho. In 2005 at the peak of his powers, starred in a viral Nike clip that became the first video on YouTube to reach one million views. The doctored clip featured the Brazilian doing impossible tricks,apparently due to the special boots he was wearing. They featured real 24-carat gold in the Nike logo, a gold embroidered “R” and five stars on the heels to represent Brazil’s World Cup wins. They may seem demure by today’s standards, but at a time when coloured boots were not prevalent, they were quite radical.
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By the end of the year 2005, Ronaldinho had started to accumulate a host of personal awards. He won the inaugural FIFPro World Player of the Year in September 2005, in addition to being included in the 2005 FIFPro World XI, and being named the 2005 European Footballer of the Year. Also that year, Ronaldinho was voted the FIFA World Player of the Year for the second consecutive year. He became only the third player to win the award more than once, after three-time winners Ronaldo and Zinedine Zidane. His domination as the world’s best footballer was undisputed as he also won the prestigious Ballon d’Or for the only time in his career.
“When you play with him and see what he does with a ball, nothing surprises me any more. One of these days, he will make the ball talk” Eiður Guðjohnsen
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On 16 January 2018, Ronaldinho confirmed his retirement from football through his brother/agent: “He has stopped, it is ended. Let’s do something pretty big and nice after the Russia World Cup, probably in August.” Such a celebration would take place three years after his last appearance for Fluminense.
