Ronaldinho’s brother and agent Assis de Moreira has went on record saying a deal with AC Milan is “close to completion”, though the Manchester City boardroom are still hopeful a last minute deal can be done to bring the Brazilian sensation to the North of England.

Ronaldinho has had a poor season with Barcelona, being hampered by several injuries. It is widely believed he feels a move away from Spain will be beneficial to his career at this point. He has also been linked with a big money switch to Chelsea, but with them closing in on Robinho this is now looking unlikely.

Mark Hughes said:

“He is a world star and if these things are going to happen they are likely to take a bit of time and we are patient.”

Ronaldinho was World Player of The Year in both 2004 and 2005. In 2005 he scored an amazing 960 points, with 2nd place Frank Lampard a mile behind on 429 points. In that time period, live football was a joy to watch with Ronaldinho gracing the pitch.

If Ronaldinho can return to even a fraction of the player he was in 2004-2005 he would revitalise the Manchester City team and hopefully put them in contention for a European place.

La Liga Round 23

Sevilla ( 7th , 37 pts ) vs Barcelona ( 2nd , 47 pts )

Saturday February 9, 2008 , 21 GMT
Sánchez Pizjuán

Check out the video:

What are the latest betting odds on Ronaldinho scoring in the next match - find out at Bwin!

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.