The main reason I started this blog back in March was to teach others how to play football like Ronaldinho. This meant I would have to create some sort of guide to help footballers visiting this website understand the various secrets and techniques that Ronnie has in his repertoire. I’ve done this with the Be Like Ronaldinho Book and I must say I’m glad with what has been produced, however, it brings me to point of asking, is imitating someone really the best way to go if you want to be a great player?

At First Yes, Later On No

Yes because, by imitation you learn a wonderful technique that has taken this footballer 10+ years to learn. Later on, when you’ve mastered this technique imitation becomes something that you cannot go back to, because as a footballer it is your duty to come up with new and exciting plays, without having to borrow off other players. This is what can make you a truly great footballer, the idea of individuality. Personally, I love to please a crowd of fans because they’ve come to watch a great game of football being played out and if I can show them skills that have taken me countless hours to perfect that’s great, but when I show them something they haven’t seen before, at any level, then that’s something special I have and you can too.

Ronaldinho vs Zlatan Ibrahimovic

Both are my favourite players and both do the Elastico as one of their trademark moves. Now, both have varied styles of executing this technique and both ways I have seen are rather effective. At one stage or another, both had to imitate this move to get it right, but then after mastering the technique, they added their own little touch to it. Zlatan like to run along the sideline when doing this whereas Ronaldinho likes to pull this move off near the corners and the goal line, with near stationary position. Like I said before if it works for them and it will work for you also. If you imitate, then put your own spin on it, the crowd will love you for it because they’re seeing something new. But nothing beats a technique you’ve come up with all by yourself, but I’ll leave that one for another time. For now, here’s a video of Zlatan and Ronaldinho, showcasing their differences and similarities.