Ronaldo de Assis Moreira

Don’t be fooled by the name Ronaldo, this isn’t the famous Portuguese player Cristiano Ronaldo, but rather the famous Brazilian player Ronaldo de Assis Moreira. Ronaldo de Assis Moreira, is also known as Ronaldinho, was born in March 21, 1980, in Porto Alegre, Brazil. He is one of the biggest names in the sport of soccer coming out of Brazil. Soccer is said to flow in the blood of Ronaldinho, with his father and his older brother being professional soccer players as well. Growing up, like what many sons do, Ronaldinho looked up to his father as his idol. This is relationship with his father is one reason behind why he himself pursued his career.

Ronaldinho is known for his sportsmanship in his gameplay. He has said that his father once told him to be a honest and play simple, which to him is the most important career advice he could have gotten. His career began at the age of 7 with youth soccer. It was here where Ronaldo got his known nick name Ronaldinho. He says that the team he was used to play for had people much older than him. When he made it to the senior national team, he met a player playing there whose name was also Ronaldo. To avoid confusion his team compromised on his name as he was younger and started calling him Ronaldinho.

Ronaldinho grew in a poor neighborhood and rarely got opportunity to play in a grass field. What he was used to play mostly in is was small concrete fields. In these fields teams of 5 will play with a very small goal. This sport is not even called football, but rather futsal. Playing a lot much of futsal at his young age helped Ronaldinho develop amazing control on the ball. His career had quite a rapid growth despite the hurdles in his childhood. By the age of 13 he made a record of scoring an insane 23 goal record in a single match. By the age of 17 he even got to play in the under 17 years national team of Brazil. He even won the World Championship with this team.

After this championship victory Ronaldinho made a mark in Brazil and started earning a reputation between his peers. He got into a famous Brazilian club, Gremio. By 1999, at the age of 19, Ronaldinho was selected for playing for the senior team to play the Confederation Cup. The tournament went quite well for the country and Brazil, with Brazil finishing off at second place and Ronaldinho winning the Golden Ball (the best player of the tournament). At this point, Ronaldinho had a strong reputation proceeding him not just in Brazil, but internationally. He was able to play in Europe in 2001 for PSG (Paris Saint Germain), leaving his Brazilian club.

Just the year after his entry to European soccer, he also got his entry to the World Cup in 2002 at the age of 22. This world cup became the biggest highlight of Ronaldinho’s career with Brazil beating Germany in the finals to claim their 5th world cup title. After this title win, Ronaldinho was able to join his favorite club, FC Barcelona, where he met a young legend much later on who came to become known as the GOAT of soccer Leonel Messi. He got the legendary jersey number 10 (which eventually also became Leonel Messi’s jersey number).

Ronaldinho at this point was at the peak of his career, but things started to get rough after this. He switched from Milan, but his performance decreased drastically there. He returned to play for a Brazilian club, but him not showing up to all the practices got his contract terminated. He tried hard to get to play for Brazil in the 2014 World Cup, but wasn’t able to. He kept on trying to play at big global stages, but wasn’t able to. He eventually retired in 2018.

He is still remembered as one of the greatest Brazilian player alongside Pele and Rivelino and will forever remain in the list of the GOATS of soccer.

Source:

https://www.biography.com/athlete/ronaldinho