Interviews
You can find many of the different interviews Ronaldinho has taken part in, whether it be from sitting down with FourFourTwo Magazine to Nike, all of Ronaldinho’s responses will help you gain insight into the thinking and upbringing of the greatest player in the world.
Ronaldinho Article
Ronaldinho’s 25th Birthday
Ronaldinho FIFA World Player
Pure Football, Pure Hope
Ronaldinho’s Tricks
Time To Conquer Europe
Homage from Catalonia
IGN Interview
Nike Football Interview
Pre-World Cup 2006 Interview
Sports Illustrated Interview
FourFourTwo Interview
Football can be a ruthless business - even if you are as gifted as Ronaldinho. “I was angry at Stamford Bridge,” he admits. “I took that defeat very very hard because I thought that we proved over two legs we were a better team than Chelsea.” Even scoring a virtuoso goal in the second leg of the UEFA Champion’s League knockout tie didn’t help. “Football is a team game, it’s not about individual glory. It was hard to swallow, but all you can do is to pick yourself up, stand tall and win your next match. Our first target now must be to win the Spanish League.”
But then, as the man who calls himself ‘feo simpatico’ - ugly, but friendly - says: “Football for me is pleasure, joy, my life. The happiest moment of my day is when I am with the ball, training. Being a footballer is still the best job in the world. It’s the one thing I wanted to do as a child. My first presents were a ball and mini boots, so I was encouraged to play at a very early age. I used to sleep and wake up with a ball. I would play with my friends and after they got tired, I kept playing with my dog because he would never stop.”
He admits though he wasn’t the star of the school football team. “Believe it or not, I had to ask some of the other boys if I could be on their team. We had some very talented footballers at our school and I was one of the smaller kids. They didn’t always want me to play with them.” His luck changed after he scored 20 goals in one youth game. “I still remember that, that was amazing.”
In the late 1990s, European journalists descended on Ronaldinho’s home town of Porto Alegre , to find out where this Brazilian had come from. They were informed Ronaldinho had an uncle, already over 40, who was better than him. “But where, where?” the excited reporters asked. “Rua, rua,” they were told and went looking for Rua Football Club, unaware the word means street.
While Ronaldinho’s sublime skills were moulded on the streets, his character came from the cradle. “I have always wanted to win ever since I was young. Even at scissors, paper, stone, so I have always been very, very competitive.“ He had many heroes as a youngster, but it was Romario who became his biggest idol after the 1994 World Cup: “I was 13 and watching him on TV, I looked at him and said: ‘that’s what I want my life to be, I want to be like this guy, I want to be a world champion.“
Still only 25, he hasn’t taken long to emulate his idol and become an icon for Brazil and Barcelona . Ironically, the Barca star was first called into the Brazilian national side by Wanderly Luxemburgo, now coach at Real Madrid. Influential in the 1997 World Youth Championship with Brazil , Ronaldinho’s skills really got noticed after a sensational goal against Venezuela in 1999, where he dribbled past a defender and lobbed another before slamming the ball into the net. He went on to lift the Copa America and remains grateful to Luxemburgo.
“I admire him a lot. Mangers put their personalities on their teams and each has a different system. Luxemburgo is a tremendous winner and has already imposed stronger marking and fast attacking at Real Madrid.“
It took a while before his local club Gremio received offers for him that they couldn’t refuse. He left for Paris-Saint-Germain in 2001, but didn’t play for almost six months because of a dispute that led to the French club because of a dispute that led to the French club compensating Gremio to the tune of £2.3 million. He was inconsistently brilliant for PSG, until Barca signed him.
Ronaldinho believes it’s inevitable Brazil will keep producing great football stars and that, like him, the best will want ot head to Europe: “Football is in our country’s culture. The strong love will never die. The ability is in our blood. That’s why we’ll always have great players. But everyone has big dreams, everyone wants one day to play with the greatest. And to play with the greatest, you have to come to Europe. It’s like a ladder in life.”
He may have been voted the best player in the world, but he’s not satisfied with his game. “I do not score enough headers. That is the weakest part of my game, but I am practising very hard and getting better little by little.”
Praised by Johan Cruyff and Diego Maradona, he is the kind of players other footballer admit that they would pay to watch, but who does he like to watch most? “Samuel Eto’o and Deco are magnificent entertaining footballers. I’d also pay to watch Zidane and Ronaldo. They are truly great and have amazing skills.“
This array of talents add spice to the original el classico, the Barcelona v Real Madrid derby. “It’s the best game anyone can watch in the whole world,” he says. “It’s a match every player wants to play in, and up until now, I’m pleased to say, a match I have always won.”
His status as world player of the year has been raised with his leading roles in football’s campaign against racism and the recent tsunami charity match at Camp Nou. His involvement in humanitarian causes is an instinctive response to his own childhood: “In Brazil, most players come from a poor background, many from favelas. They are aware of helping others because they know how hard it is. I am trying to give a good example, mostly to the youngsters so they can do the same in the future.“
Ronaldinho joined a TV campaign with Thierry Henry and other top footballers in the fight against racism. He has been supportive of Cameroon team-mate Eto’o, a victim of racial abuse at a Spanish ground who reacted by making monkey gestures back to the crowd. Ronaldinho warns: “This disturbs us. We have to try to minimise it, to eliminate it. The players are together in this. With the official bodies, we have to do something. I hope people will become more conscious about it.”
While he doesn’t have the obvious trappings of stardom, he readily admits he always wants to be famous: “I dreamed of being what I am today, to be well known, to sign an autograph. If I was not like this, I would have been a frustrated guy. I always wanted to go somewhere and have people acknowledge: ‘that’s the guy who plays good football.’ I enjoy that.”
He travels without bodyguards and dresses casually, tidying his long hair in a pony tail or bandana. The only obvious sign of wealth is his taste for it-don’t mean-a-thing-if-it-ain’t-got-that-bling-jewellery. Direct and uncomplicated, he is even happy to discuss the way he looks: “Look, I am ugly but charming, I am a good person, able to buy a sandwich…. So adding it all up, I become a beautiful guy,” he laughs.
A scan of the Spanish gossip pages suggests the Barcelona star’s social life is quieter now than during his spell in Paris. “I am not a party-goer,” he says, arguing that the rumours that circulated at PSG spread because he was often left out of the team. “Paris is very big and it’s easier for newspapers to invent you have been here and there. Barcelona is much smaller and everybody knows where I am so it’s harder to invent things.”
He lives in a large house on the outskirts of Barcelona, surrounded by dogs, musical instruments, friends and family. His mother, Dona Miguelina, looks after the family when she is not in Brazil, brother Roberto is his agent and mentor and sister Diese handles his personal agenda. Together, they form Ronaldinho Family Limited. “It’s perfect. Our family has always been very friendly, we get more united as the days go on.”
Ronaldinho recalls the loss of his father, who drowned in their swimming pool after they moved to a better house in Brazil when he was only nine. “I was very young. My brother took care of everything and he became my friend and my father too. So today I respect and think of him like a father.”
After football, his passion is music. A keen percussionist, he is the maestro in the Brazil squad’s samba sessions. “I try to be a great drummer but I’m not sure how good I am.” Luckily for his neighbours, Ronaldinho’s home is detached. He says he make take up music seriously one day, but still has loads of football in him first: “I still have to get a lot of kicking in the chin.”
He is almost as devoted to table-tennis. Having played it since he was a kid he is the man to beat in team camps: “I love it. I have a table at home where I play with my friends but I cannot do any stepovers,“ he jokes. Barca and Brazil team-mate Edmilson is one of his closest ping-pong rivals.
The conversation is interrupted by the sound of a cockerel. It’s his mobile phone. Ronaldinho checks the call, apologises and the talk returns to football. He has relished the Champion’s League, even - despite the season’s outcome - the new extra knockout round: “I like it because each match is like a final, it’s the time the pan heats up.”
The pan really heated up for him during the World Cup 2002 quarter final against England, a game in which he was sent off after scoring a fine goal. “Everybody asks me about that goal. Yes, I shot to score, but at the other side of goal. The shot came a bit too strong and the ball made a curve, falling just behind David Seaman in the top corner. Marvellous. Cafu was telling me - ‘He’s out of his goal’ - and after I shot, it went into the other side.“
He swears his eternal love for Barcelona where the latest talk is a contract for life: “I live very well here, on and off the pitch. Everyday brings a new surprise. The culture is similar to Brazil and this helps me play better. I cannot imagine living somewhere else.” He also likes the way coach frank Riijkard lets him play. “He lets me float around the pitch looking for the ball which will suit me. But this season my rivals know me a lot better so it has become harder for me to make as big an impact as when I first wore the Barcelona shirt.” One opponent, especially, has made an impression. “The Athletic Bilbao player Andoni Iraola marked me very well.“
So who does he want to win the Champion’s League? “It’s hard to pick anyone, now that we can’t win. Personally, I hope a team who plays pretty well wins it this year. I’d like to see my Brazilian friends pick up winners medals: Adriano at Inter; Milan, because of Cafu; Lyon, with Juninho, a good friend; even Juventus because I like Emerson. If any of those win it, I’ll be very happy.“
Ronaldinho departs after telling us why he’s always smiling. “I am happy, I have a marvellous family, good health and do what I like most, which is to play football. With all that, I can only be smiling. There’s no other way.”
You are now 25 years old. What has been the best moment of your life?
“I have had many great moments. Thanks to God I have had a very good life since I was young, both in football and away from it. I have enjoyed a lot of good times that I will always remember.”
It is said that a player reaches his peak at 28. Are you still learning and do you think that we have not seen the best of Ronaldinho yet?
“I believe that a football player continues to learn right up until he retires. I am still young and I can still improve. They do say that 28 is the age when you are your best and I am very pleased that I still have plenty of years ahead of me and a lot more to learn.”
What differences do you think there are between Ronaldinho this season compared to last?
“I think the main difference is that I have continued to mature. I am more mature not than I was last year and more so today than even yesterday, that’s the way life is.”
What is main difference between the team this term, compared to the team last season?
“They are totally opposite. Last year we did not have a very good first half to the season and there were many changes, both with the board and the playing squad, but we ended the campaign strongly. This year we started very well with all the new players and things have continued like that.”
You have had your first taste of the Champions League this season. How did you find it?
“In that competition every game is like a final and the fans expectations are very different. It is a very important step for a player to take in his career. Things went well, but they could have been a lot better. We lost, but we use that a lesson for next season.”
You have always said that you are more of a creator than a goalscorer. Is your role in the side this season allowing you to do more of that?
“With the new signings that have come in this season I am able to do more of what I like. It appears that this year is not as good because I am scoring less goals, but on the other hand now I have the chance to do the things I want and the things I know I can do well.”
Is the secret of the team the fact that there are so many young players who are all desperate to win trophies?
“The secret is the great respect we all have for each other and that when we play we always give everything.”
The spine of the team is made up of young players. Could it be said that this team is not only one for the present, but also for the future?
“It is a young team and I think that in a couple of years we will be really, really, good and will be capable of competing for every honour and that we will play to win every competition we compete in.”
How does the fact that Frank Rijkaard won so many trophies as a player help in his role as coach?
“There a quite a few players that have won many things, but have not done well when they have become trainers. On the other hand, there are great coaches that never won anything when they played. The great thing here is that we have a coach that won so much as a player, but also that is an extraordinary person who is always calm, but also has a few tricks to help us win every game.”
May Ronaldinho never grow up. As much for his individual ability to change the course of a game, it is the energy, enthusiasm, cheekiness and sheer audacity of Barcelona’s Brazilian star that has won the hearts of fans, team-mates and national team coaches alike. Typically modest, the player with the broadest smile in the game and, at 24, the second youngest player to win the FIFA World Player award spoke exclusively to FIFA.com.
FIFA.com: You came to the fore at the FIFA U-17 World Championship in Egypt in 1997 , were topscorer at the FIFA Confederations Cup in Mexico in 1999, were among the best players as Brazil won their fifth FIFA World Cup in Japan and, now, you’ve just been chosen as the FIFA World Player of the Year for 2004. How come FIFA seems to bring out the best in Ronaldinho?
Ronaldinho: (Laughs) FIFA’s name and mine do seem to get on pretty well and long may it continue. When FIFA is mentioned, it is normally because it is an important competition - just the ones where I hope to do my best in. All I can say is that I hope my name crops up many more times with FIFA’s, starring and helping my teams in their competitions.
A good number of the current crop of Barcelona players have also emerged after starring in FIFA’s junior and youth world championships. How important are they?
It’s not just that you are playing against the best when you are young, but that you learn to live together with team-mates. It helps if you win of course, but the experience and knowledge gained from picking things up from other footballers from all over the world does you no end of good. It gives you that extra confidence to go and succeed.
It seems to have helped you in adapting to European football.
It can be difficult for South American players in Europe. They are totally different cultures. I went to Paris, confronting not only a different language and culture, but a foreign style of play. No question about it: you need time to adapt. At Barcelona, the day of my presentation was spectacular. I immediately felt at home, as if had found the right place, if you know what I mean. Even before I pulled on the Barcelona jersey I had begun to love the place.
What do you consider to be the highlights of 2004?
I’ve had so many great moments to cherish this year I cannot think of a single one outstanding. I’ve scored a lot of goals and some pretty important ones too. The winner against Milan (late goal for 2-1 in Barcelona, in Champions League group stage) would definitely rank among the best as it came at a decisive time, the moment when I take it upon myself to make a difference. The second half of last season was a pretty good time too when we really pulled together and got into a winning rhythm which we’ve carried on this season. I never expected to score so many goals last season. I see myself as more of a creator than a goalscorer. Now we’re playing for fun and that’s when you know you are doing well.
In the summer you were part of a Brazilian side that travelled to Haiti for a tickets for guns match referred to as “football for peace”. The video is amazing and shows you visibly moved by the passion generated there.
It was so different from what you would normally expect, it’s hard to put into words. Haiti is a country that has so many difficulties, poverty and bad things. We went there in the middle of the troubles and we made them forget their worries and at least for a short time brought happiness. It really touched my heart.
Your name is the next in a long list of greats: Romario, Ronaldo, Rivaldo just to mention the Brazilians, all by the way who won while playing for Barcelona. What does it mean to be named FIFA World Player of the Year?
How can I explain? I’m just 24. These guys were my idols and still are, so for me to be the next in the list is just an unbelievable moment. I have been working at my game for the past two seasons and hope my performances are the fruits of that labour. Just to be named among the top three with Henry and Shevchenko is something to be proud of.
There have been some dark years at Barcelona recently, but Ronaldinho seems to be the player the club has long been waiting for. Your enthusiasm appears to have infected the whole team and now nobody can stop smiling.
Well, I don’t think it’s down to me alone. I arrived at a time when a lot of changes were being made with new directors and other players coming in. Of course, I’m delighted to have been part of a positive change in such a huge club.
But Ronaldinho has provided the thrill Barcelona fans had become used to during the Dream Team days, and you seem to have a special relationship with the public. After your penalty equaliser against Valencia (18 December) you turned to the crowd and repeatedly threw your arms in the air as if conducting an orchestra. If the Nou Camp is the theatre, aren’t you the actor who plays to the audience?
I don’t see it that way. Simply, I am what I am and well it’s easy for me to do what I am told to do - that is play football naturally. Everyone seems to be happy with that. I see myself as a player in a team not an individual alone. At the moment I would not want to change anything.
Everyone says you are such a nice guy. Do you sometimes find it difficult to be a star?
I don’t consider myself to be a star. I’m just a young player who can do a lot more and learn many more things in the future.
What does Ronaldinho do to relax?
Outside of the action and training, I like to spend time with my family and listen to music.
You played bongos on the Brazil team bus at the World Cup didn’t you?
(Laughs) I adore music, especially percussion instruments. Any drum will do, I just love playing them. Fortunately my Brazilian friends perform quite a lot of concerts in Barcelona and I often go along and listen.
There are quite a few Brazilians now at Barca (Edmilson, Sylvinho, Motta, Belletti, and Deco -who is of Brazilian origin). Do you go together?
No, not really. Everyone has their own special taste. I often dine with my team-mates and in any case we’re together a lot already.
How important is your family?
I am what I am thanks to my family. They have helped from the beginning, and continue to do so now. I am happy when I know they are well.
What are your hopes for 2005?
To be better than 2004, to stay fit and healthy and help my club and country win trophies.
Could Brazil win the World Cup for a sixth time in 2006? Although you won in Sweden in 1958 when Pele was 17, victory in Europe has not been easy.
I hope we can. We have a great team, who work hard and that gives us a lot of confidence. We are well placed in the South American qualifiers and have retained the nucleus of the side that won the World Cup last time. That counts for a lot as with each new game, we understand each other better.
Ronaldinho: “I know what it’s like to suffer.“
Six days after Ronaldinho was crowned FIFA World Player of the Year, tsunami waves battered coastlines in Southeast Asia, South Asia and Africa. Captaining the World XI in the tsunami charity match on 15 February, Barcelona’s Brazilian star tells FIFA.com of the responsibility being the best carries and why he is at the forefront of football’s growing commitment to humanitarian causes.
Like much of what has happened in his football career up to now, Ronaldinho’s trademark image, his smile, could be described as winning. But it seemed he had left it at home on 20 December when he picked up football’s most prestigious individual prize at the glitzy award ceremony in Zurich, Switzerland. Though nerveless when treading grass in front of thousands, the sudden realisation of the significance of his achievement left the 24-year-old, apparently shellshocked, far removed from the assuming confidence often associated with football’s biggest stars.
“Everybody was saying ‘you’re going to win, you’re going to win’ but until the very last moment I had no idea,“ he laughs, much more relaxed at Barcelona’s Nou Camp. “It was a beautiful ceremony and I’m just itching to be part of it again, many times more in fact.“
Ronaldinho Gaucho is a restless character. With sudden, jerky movements, a toothy grin that can evaporate as quickly as it flashes on a face of angelic innocence, he hops and skips around the Nou Camp after training. As is his increasingly demanding routine, he poses for a picture here and answers a question there before returning to the bosom of his family transplanted from Porto Alegre to the Catalan capital.
But make no mistake - Ronaldinho is a footballer whose feet are firmly planted on the ground. Being chosen as the best footballer on the planet has touched him deeply and the ball wizard from the back streets of Brazil’s southern city is now determined to give something back to the world.
“I know what it’s like when life is not easy; to suffer, and that’s why I’d never turn down an opportunity to help,” he says suddenly serious again in a voice that could be described as a hushed whisper.
Barcelona’s number 10 and Brazil’s joker in the pack at the 2002 FIFA World Cup is very much aware of his roots and of the extraordinary talent he was blessed with. One of the most frequent visitors to the Catalan club’s small chapel, Ronnie is in no doubt where to show his gratitude.
“I thank God for giving me good health. Sometimes we footballers complain about the smallest of things when there are people out there with profound problems,” says the striker, brought up in the modest Vila Nova barrio of the city. “I am conscious of where I came from and will always think of these people. I will try to make them feel better they best way I know - by playing football.”
Troubled by a nagging ankle injury at the start of the Spanish season, Ronaldinho is starting to hit peak form just when Barcelona most need it. The winter break and the boost of being named the world’s best appear to have given the Brazilian star his edge back.
“I’m feeling very proud right now,” he says breaking into a smile and letting go of the “R” chain around his neck he has absentmindedly been fingering. “For me, this award is the result of many years of hard work and dedication. It gives me a lot of pleasure to know that my work is known globally and to think that people all over the world know who I am. I’m living my dreams. I’m trying to enjoy the best days of my life to the full and, at the same time, set an example to the youngsters.”
The former Gremio and Paris Saint-Germain player is no stranger to charity events. Last year, he travelled with his Brazilian team-mates to Haiti, a country devastated by civil war and hurricanes, for a match labelled “football for peace“. More recently, he has added his voice and lent his face to the fight against racism in the game. So when he heard about the devastation caused by the giant seaquake in the Indian Ocean, it was no surprise that he wanted to do something.
“The full extent of the disaster didn’t really reach us until I was in Brazil,” he says. “I remember that I was travelling by plane on my way back home to my city (Porto Alegre) and everyone was talking about it. The pictures were on television and we were really shocked. We all asked ourselves what we could we do to help.
“Then when I returned to Barcelona, I was contacted through the club and asked if I would like to play a part. I said I would be honoured to lead one of the teams and we started to organise the match. I’m just delighted to be playing with the best players in the world for such a noble cause. Footballers don’t have that much spare time but we try to do the best we can and participate in such matches.”
On the eve of the match, Valentine’s Day, a clutch of famous and not-so-famous players will be at the Paris wedding of his country team-mate and club rival Ronaldo, the Real Madrid striker who was known as Ronaldinho in his sensational year at Barcelona in 1996. Many attending the Brazilian’s third marriage will jet back to Barcelona to play in the charity game for either Shevchenko or Ronaldinho Gaucho’s team.
“Everyone on my team is very experienced and has played in similar matches like this before so what can I tell them?” says the World XI captain on the words he will say ahead of kick off. “But I’ll probably ask them to enjoy themselves and play to the public as much as possible. And of course to thank them for coming to play in such a special match to help raise money for those people who so much need it.”
His eyes light up and once again the smile shines through his features. Ronaldinho, the player who has perhaps done most to bring pride back to Catalonia, radiates enough energy to bring some hope to more distant regions of the world.
Barcelona superstar Ronaldinho has warned Chelsea that nothing will stop him from “making his mark on history“ and winning the Champions League.
The buck-toothed World Player of the Year claimed the Spanish giants are not worried by any of Jose Mourinho’s stars - because it is Barcelona’s destiny to win the trophy this season.
World Cup winner Ronaldinho has helped establish Barca as the most lethal attacking force in Europe.
And he is ready to shatter Chelsea’s Quadruple dream in the Nou Camp next week in the glamour tie of the last 16. The Brazilian then wants a final show-down with Chelsea’s London rivals Arsenal - and his great mate Edu. “Personally, it didn’t matter to me who we were drawn against in the last 16,” said Ronaldinho. “It didn’t concern me.
“I’m confident we can reach the Champions League final because not only do we have great quality within our squad, but also everyone associated with this club is extraordinarily passionate about achieving something great for Barcelona and our fans.This team knows it is good enough to make our mark on history. “
“One of the secrets to Barcelona’s success this season, and one of the reasons why I’m so confident about the future, is that we are very united as a team.
“We’re a tight group and very much on the same wavelength.
“At this stage of the Champions League all of the teams are very strong, so there is no point in worrying too much about our opponents.
“Above all else, Barcelona should just concentrate on our own game and not obsess about Chelsea or any of their star players.” Ronaldinho, however, picks out Chelsea’s Frank Lampard as the biggest danger to his dreams.
Speaking in this week’s Nuts magazine, he said: “Lampard has been outstanding for Chelsea all season.
“Chelsea remind me very much of Barcelona. They have very good individual players all over the pitch, but it is their spirit that stands out above all else.
“Having good players alone doesn’t always decide the outcome of a match.
“Chelsea’s strength is their defence, but also the fact that they play as a team. They all play for each other at all times.
“They have many great footballers. We must be aware of every single one of them for this tie.”
Ronaldinho also revealed his wish to meet Arsenal in the final in Istanbul in May - for a showdown with his big Brazilian pal Edu.
“Because I am such good friends with Edu, I hope that Arsenal go the furthest of all the English sides this season,“ he said. “I wish him the best of luck and hope to see him at the final. But really I don’t care who makes the final as long as they are there to face Barcelona.
“The standard of the Champions League is so high that any of the other 15 teams can realistically make it. There are no favourites.
“For the final in Istanbul in May, I see Barcelona against Milan or against Real Madrid. Either would be the kind of huge match I like to play in.
“But the World Cup is a harder level to play at because all the best countries in the world are there.
“But in club football, there’s no doubt whatsoever that the Champions League is the best competition.”
But Ronaldinho, famous for his buck-toothed smile, has promised that he will continue to keep enjoying his football, and life in general.
He said: “In life, there is light and there is obscurity. Why stay in the dark and be sad? I have always chosen the light side. I am in good health, I have a fantastic family, I play football.
“My personality is to have fun in everything I do. How could I not be happy? I have always approached life in that way.
“I am not scared of facing the pressure of the club, the fans and the press. I know that my role is to make people happy. I like that and I will play football all my life for this reason.”
Ronaldinho is ready to show off all his tricks against Chelsea - and maybe a few new ones too.
He said: “I try to enlarge my repertoire of feints and tricks by working more and more and varying my training.
“I learn every day from (Barcelona coach) Frank Rijkaard. One move? I like ‘the elastic’, as they call it in Brazil, where in a split second you caress the ball with the outside of your foot and then the instep.
“I didn’t invent this move personally. The first time I saw it used was by the great Rivelino and I have just modernised it. I really wanted to do it, I fell in love with it.
“It is all a matter of training and repeating the move. It is important never to lose contact with the ball. You have to work hard and when you perfect it, it becomes natural for you.”
The Greatest Footballer in the world has an urgent problem to address. Ronaldinho may have been able to place the FIFA world player of the year trophy next to the World Cup winner’s medal on his mantlepiece, but there is still a large gap in the space reserved for the biggest club prizes.
With Barcelona seven points clear at the top of La Liga, he may be poised to put that right. But Chelsea are standing in the way of his burning ambition — to win the the European Cup.
Ronaldinho, who will be 25 next month, is sitting in a tiny, windowless room after a session at the Barca training ground next to the Nou Camp. “I want to win a title this year and, if I can, I want to win both of them,” he said. This being Ronaldo de Assis Moreira, every word comes with a smile. “It’s true that I never had the joy of winning a club trophy in Europe. Last year, we came second. Now, we are at full power, leading the table, plenty of confidence.”
In Barcelona, the European Cup final- before-the-final is the talk of the town. Sports papers dedicate almost 20 pages per day just for Barca, and Chelsea also receive lots of attention, with stories about José Mourinho, Roman Abramovich, Stamford Bridge, the fans and the pubs.
It is hard to go into a bar without spotting a newspaper headline or hearing something about the match between the two best teams in Europe this season. “You wake up in the morning and people are already saying ‘Chelsea, you have to beat Chelsea’ ,” Ronaldinho said. “It would be a classico , so the whole routine in the city changes. We are living it 100 per cent.”
One of Mourinho’s many memorable quotes this season was when he described a defensively minded Tottenham Hotspur team as having parked a bus in front of goal. That is exactly what the Barcelona No 10 expects to see on Wednesday.
“All teams who come here close themselves and resort to counter-attacks because we play offensively all the time and they know our qualities,” he said. “Chelsea would use their strong marking, which is the style of football liked by Mourinho.”
Ronaldinho enjoys parading his skills in the relaxed atmosphere of charity and exhibition matches but he is, above all, a real competitor: “The fact that Chelsea have a good defence, one of the best in Europe, gives us more motivation. We want to play against the best and to win against them to show we are in a good moment.”
John Terry and Frank Lampard were not in Japan when Ronaldinho ruined England’s 2002 World Cup with a goal and an assist, but he has met most of his Chelsea opponents while on international duty. He followed Didier Drogba’s progress at Marseilles during his two years in France with Paris Saint-Germain and reveals a human side when reflecting on the absence of Arjen Robben.
“He is a player with an important role in their team. He is the creator, gives the final pass, the assists. But I also regret because it is one of our fellow professionals who is injured.”
Also in Chelsea’s way will be Deco, who is on form after scoring both goals in Barca’s victory over Mallorca at the weekend. The playmaker will be a key figure because of his experience with Mourinho at Porto. “He (Mourinho) had a big influence on me,” Deco said. “Chelsea have a strong team, great players and money to buy them. It is obvious he has a big responsibility there.”
Deco, who is 27, is the only player at Barcelona with a European Cup winner’s medal. “To win a Champions League depends on many things,” he said. “You need first a great team, to be concentrated — a goal conceded at home can decide a tie and deep down you also need a bit of luck.”
Ronaldinho is aware of the importance of Deco’s contribution. “Deco is outstanding, gives rhythm to our team, has an excellent pass and can always decide a match. He is also a leader off the pitch — a player who talks a lot with the others. He is very important for us.”
Ronaldinho is aware that speculation will always link him with English clubs, but he has no doubt that he made the right move in choosing Spain and Barcelona. “If I had gone to England, I would have had to adapt to a different culture, another language, everything would have taken longer. Here it all happened quickly and I am following the steps of Romario, Ronaldo and Rivaldo — now I am the next one.”
Ronaldinho has just inspired Barcelona to their first Spanish title for six years. He talks to Justin Webster about football as art, the lasting effect of his father’s early death and why, having almost signed for Manchester United, he would thrive in the Premiership
Sunday June 5, 2005
Observer Sport Monthly
The game ended with Barcelona’s defenders passing the ball back and forth, the players of lowly Levante mere onlookers. The score was a hum-drum 1-1. Yet at the final whistle, fans, press and everyone on the Barcelona bench immediately invaded the pitch. The visiting players leapt for joy and a section of the crowd, in the small stadium in a suburb of Valencia, cheered ecstatically, a foretaste of the carnival atmosphere that would greet the team on their return to Catalonia. FC Barcelona - Barça to everyone in Spain - had won the Primera Liga. With two games left to play, Real Madrid could no longer catch them.
As usual, Ronaldinho was the last player to head for the dressing room. He was zigzagging across the grass, surrounded by journalists, cameras, outstretched microphones, security guards and fans. Just as he was about to reach the touchline, he broke free and rushed to the part of the ground where several thousand Barça supporters were celebrating. His run turned into a frenzied gallop, his face thrust out to the fans. A television commentator, searching for the words to go with the pictures, summed up the story so far of Ronaldinho in Spain: ‘The media star. The number one.’
Almost two years ago, I witnessed Ronaldinho’s arrival from inside the club as I worked on a television film about Barça. The starting point of the film was that the biggest football club in the world - if measured by the 100,000-strong total of members, who are also Barça’s owners - was in one of the worst crises of its long history, with debts accumulating and a football team that had won nothing for four years. Meanwhile, Real Madrid, Barça’s traditional rival, had become a powerhouse of trophy-winning, branding and glamour.
The group of young Catalan executives who, in June 2003, won the club elections to take over the management, led by a 40-year-old lawyer called Joan Laporta, promised new policies to reverse the decline. Their aim was the signing of a ‘world-class media star’, both as a way of inspiring Barça supporters and rebuilding the club’s tarnished brand. David Beckham was the first choice. The young progressives boosted their credibility before the elections when they persuaded Manchester United to agree to sell them Beckham, if they were to win the elections and if Beckham were to agree. Three days after they won on 15 June in a landslide, Beckham snubbed them and went to Real Madrid. It was in this context that Laporta and his team went about trying to sign Ronaldinho. It wasn’t just another signing: it had become - because of the state of the club, the campaign promises and the controversial Beckham saga - a question of survival.
Two years on, Ronaldinho arrives for our interview looking taller and slimmer than you would think from his muscular presence on the pitch. He wears a close-fitting dark blue tracksuit. His long black tresses are tied up in a headband. He has a silver ‘R’ on a chain around his neck and a gold and diamond-encrusted stud in his left ear.
We meet just before Barcelona clinch the title, but the mood in the club as well as among the players is calm and confident. Ronaldinho startles some fans waiting to greet another player, then charms them equally by offering to leave when the meeting room seems to have been double booked. Despite his need for stardom on the pitch, he is celebrated for a surprising humility and grace off it.
Ronaldinho’s second season in Barcelona has not been as heroic as the first, when, virtually single-handed, he dragged the team up the table after a disastrous start to the season and ensured that they qualified for the Champions League. But it has been as rich, if not richer, in the moments that more precisely define him. One example: when, as they say in Spain, he invented a goal, the second against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge during the Champions League quarter-final. Who can forget what happened? Ronaldinho stopped, standing with the ball at his feet, just outside the area, with the whole of the Chelsea defence well positioned in front of him. Then, from there, he toe-punted the ball into the back of the net. Petr Cech, the Chelsea goalkeeper and probably the best in Europe, hardly moved.
‘When I received the ball I was going to pass to [Andrés] Iniesta,’ Ronaldinho says now, looking down at his bare feet (he extracted them carefully from plastic sandals and placed them on the carpet after he sat down). He talks cheerfully in simple Spanish with a strong Brazilian accent. ‘Then someone blocked the pass, and I said to myself, “I’ll try to dribble“. At the moment I was going to try, I looked at the goal and I saw that if the ball went hard, if it could get through an angle hard enough, it would be a goal. And well, it came off the tip of the toe hard, just in the way I wanted and… perfecto!
‘When I look at that goal now it seems like someone pressed pause and for three seconds all the players on the pitch have stopped and I am the only one that moves. Because it was a moment when I stopped the ball, and everyone stopped. And then what happened, happened.’
What happened was a creation, an invention, something new. ‘Shooting with the tip of the toe - a toe punt - seems very unskilful, the sort of thing a bad player would do,’ says Joan Golobart, a former player who writes a column of technical analysis for the Barcelona daily La Vanguardia. ‘It gives much more power for a much shorter kick, and therefore surprise, but it has a terrible drawback. The smallest error leads to the ball going off at an angle. Only a player with almost unimaginable technical ability could attempt it from that far out.’
The only other player he remembers using the toe punt was another Brazilian who played for Barcelona, Romario, but over much shorter distances, and usually when one on one with the goalkeeper. ‘The goal against Chelsea comes from playing with joie de vivre,’ says Golobart. ‘Every time Ronaldinho has the ball he believes he’s capable of creating something that will lead to a goal. He has a footballing component, the capacity for improvisation, which is the only way - by means of surprise - to overcome organised defensive systems. It’s a component - and here I’m being more philosophical, but I think it’s true - that gives him the sort of stardom he needs. He needs to feel he’s the essential link in the team. I believe the great explosion of Ronaldinho could not have happened until a club in crisis had to look to a fi gure to save them. His ego needs this.’
‘Felicidad’ - happiness - is a word Ronaldinho uses often in conversation. He was born in 1980 in a working-class district in Porto Alegre, in the south of Brazil, the youngest of three children. His father, João de Assis Moreira, worked in the shipyards. He was a dedicated and gifted amateur footballer who played for a local side, Cruzeiro, then in Brazil’s second division, as well as being a passionate supporter of the city’s main team, Gremio. His sons, first Roberto and then Ronaldo (Ronaldinho only later to differentiate him from the slightly older Brazil star), would later sign their first contracts with Gremio. João schooled his sons in the game and quickly recognised their talents. Ronaldinho remembers their home as a place of happiness, surrounded by a large extended family, with football, and his other passion, music - the samba he still loves to play - ever present.
‘I grew up in a house that was always happy, and my family was always music, music . I started playing percussion very young, because I had some uncles who were musicians and all my aunts were singers. Music and football were my whole life, from when I was about three or four. I have never imagined doing anything other than football, but now, thinking about it coldly, if I hadn’t been a footballer, I would have been a musician.’
Roberto started playing in the youth teams of Gremio at the age of 11, when Ronaldinho was still a toddler. He soon became the club’s most promising player, a highly intelligent midfielder who, by his late teens, was in the first team. Luiz Felipe Scolari, who led Brazil to World Cup victory in 2002 and who now coaches Portugal, was the coach of Gremio at the time. ‘Roberto,’ he says, ‘was, to put it mildly, Gremio’s biggest rising star and maybe Brazilian football’s as well.’ He remembers how Ronaldinho would accompany his brother to training sessions. ‘He wasn’t even eight and it made us laugh watching him kicking a ball around. He had a cheekiness and confidence that was impressive.’ Scolari would later select Ronaldinho to play in the 2002 World Cup finals.
‘I loved dribbling as a boy,’ Ronaldinho says. ‘The way we used to play, in the street, was no good for anything of course. If you’re playing for five hours you don’t want to score goals all the time and I loved dribbling. I could score a goal, but I preferred to dribble. But then my father said no. This was when I was seven. My father - who could be very hard, very correct - forced me to play with only two touches of the ball each time. This took all the fun out of it for me and, at that age, made me very angry. I cried. I didn’t understand. But now I understand what he wanted.’
At about this time, Roberto, aged 19, signed his first professional contract with Gremio - who were determined to keep him even though Torino flew him to Italy for trials. The contract included the club buying a two-storey house for the family, with a garden and a swimming pool, in a comfortable residential district that was a considerable improvement on Vila Nova, where they had been living previously. In terms of wealth, this was the moment when football began to transform the life of the family.
One afternoon in January 1989, Roberto came home from training in Rio de Janeiro to what was to have been a family celebration. It was his 18th birthday and his parents’ 19th wedding anniversary. Before the party started, his father, João, had a heart attack while swimming in the pool. He died a few days later in hospital. Ronaldinho has said many times that his brother - who is now his agent - has been like a father to him since then. Roberto still had his own career to follow. He should have played alongside players such as Roberto Carlos and Cafu in Brazil’s Olympic team, but a knee injury in 1991 kept him out of the Barcelona Games the next year, and he would never be selected for the full national side.
‘My family is everything,’ Ronaldinho says. ‘I am what I am thanks to my mother, my father, my brother, my sister … because they have given me everything. The education I have is thanks to them.’
His mother, Miguelina, sold cosmetics door-to-door and then, in middle age, studied to become a nurse. She still lives in Porto Alegre, but in an even larger family residence. She frequently visits her son in Barcelona, where he lives in a spacious house by the beach to the south of the city. There he is free to listen to his music and surround himself with his closest friends. Deisi, his university-educated sister, looks after his busy schedule, negotiating with sponsors and the press. The long process of fixing an audience with her brother starts with the club’s public relations department, but ends with one of her polite and formal text messages. Everything is designed to allow Ronaldinho to play, in the purest sense, although, paradoxically, this is also his great responsibility. ‘My only concern is playing,’ he told me. ‘Everything else my family looks after. In our house every one has a job, and my job in our house is to play football.’
Ronaldhino’s arrival in Barcelona in July 2003 was like an affair of state. Inside the club - besieged by journalists - the details of the contract were being negotiated while Ronaldinho and Laporta patted a ball around in the president’s office. At the moment of signing, Ronaldinho hummed a tune to himself. There could hardly have been better synergy between the new ambitious executives in control of the club and the man they were gambling on to fulfill their aspirations and satisfy the expectations of the fans.
Sandro Rosell, a former Nike executive in Brazil who is now Barça’s vice president for sports, negotiated the club’s difficult path through the transfer market. He was already friendly with Ronaldinho, whom Nike had sponsored since 1998. Rosell had spotted his talent long before he scored a spectacular goal on his Brazil debut in the Copa America in 1999. ‘He was just like he is now, a guy who is always happy, delighted with life, his family, and football,’ Rosell says when we meet. Extremely well connected, with a Latin sensibility and an American-style business ethic, Rosell helped give Barça the edge in negotiations, when it seemed almost certain that Ronaldinho would go to Manchester United.
How close that move came can be judged by how admiringly Ronaldinho speaks of Manchester United and indeed Chelsea. ‘They are both great clubs with excellent players. Any player would be happy to play in these teams,’ he says, ‘and in that league.’ He imagines - against received opinion in Spain - how he could have thrived in the English game. ‘A football player can adapt to any league. In England it’s a bit more difficult. There it is very fast, but if you really want to, and are dedicated, you can adapt anywhere.’
I remember the day before Ronaldinho arrived in Barcelona, when the Spanish press were calling every few minutes to find out what was happening and Rosell appeared surprisingly confident when he was asked how the negotiations were going, at a private meeting with Laporta and another executive. Manchester United seemed much more likely than a poor and unsuccessful Barcelona to close the deal. ‘We are stuck in the ground like a tree waiting for news from the British Isles,’ Rosell said at the time. ‘No news is good news.’ So what happened? ‘In the end, he just wanted to come to Barcelona,’ Rosell says. ‘And from a technical point of view, I wasn’t in favour of Beckham [joining Barça].’
Even before the club elections were called, Rosell had talked to Ronaldinho about Barça. On 29 March 2003, the day before Brazil played a friendly match against Mexico in Guadalajara, Rosell met the player in his hotel room and told him about his plans to join Joan Laporta in standing for election to the club’s ruling board. If they won, Rosell said he wanted to sign Ronaldinho. ‘I’m with you all the way,’ the player said. ‘We knew investing in Ronaldinho would be different from investing in David Beckham,’ said Ferran Soriano, the vice-president for finance, who, at that time, was still struggling with the club’s chaotic accounts. ‘Beckham gives you an immediate commercial result. Ronaldinho was more of a risk, in the sense that he gives you sporting performance from day one and, if you are consistent and develop it, a commercial impact later. Could we have signed them both? Looking back, I tend to say no.’
When it was time to negotiate seriously, not only Manchester United but Real Madrid and others were bidding for a player everyone knew was ready to leave Paris Saint-Germain, for whom he had signed in April 2001. According to Toni Frieros, author of Ronaldinho, la magia de un crack (the magic of a star), his brother Roberto said it was then too early for him to sign for a bigger club. He would need time to adapt to European football. His three seasons in France proved this to be true: he scored only three goals in his first year and eight in his last. More importantly, he fell out with the manager and was relegated to the bench more often than expected. PSG failed to qualify for the Champions League, finishing 11th in the league in 2003.
By then, the clubs were ready and waiting. In Lyon, his brother Roberto was going from one hotel to another negotiating with clubs. Rosell stuck at £27 million and left, convinced that he had lost. Manchester United had just sold Beckham to Real for £25m and were in a far better financial state than Barça. The offer from Real had been higher, but it would have meant Ronaldinho staying at PSG for another season, which effectively ruled it out. ‘The next day I said, “This can’t be”,’ recalls Rosell of the United and Real bids. Back in Barcelona, Rosell started to call everyone he could until, eventually, he was speaking to Ronaldinho’s mother, Miguelina, in Porto Alegre. The only card they had left to play was that living in Barcelona would suit the family much better than in England. ‘The difference in the offers wasn’t that big,’ Rosell told me. ‘Manchester United were offering a little more to PSG and to the player. It was a Thursday. I remember that Manchester were going on tour to the US - as were Barça - and when their plane took off they thought Ronaldinho was theirs. By the time they landed, he had signed for us.’
Barcelona, the city, was in a state of heightened excitement. The fans were awaiting news. Ronaldinho was seen as a saviour. Barcelona had in the past been a place where great Brazilian players realised their potential - and this weighed more heavily than Ronaldinho’s inconsistent performance in the French league.
‘When I came here and hadn’t even worn the Barça shirt yet, the airport was full of people,’ Ronaldinho says. ‘There were 25,000 people waiting for me the next day. That day was very special. The most important thing for me was to be happy, and not just me, but my family as well. I wanted to work with people I had known for a long time. I put everything in the balance: my style of playing, my family. I thought that this would be a place where I would be happiest and to which I would adapt most quickly. And it was a dream of mine as a boy to follow in the footsteps of my idols, Romario, Ronaldo and Rivaldo. All this influenced my decision to come to Spain.’
No one doubts that Ronaldinho is a worthy successor to Barça’s previous Brazilian idols and, in one unexpected way, he has already surpassed them. Romario was a maverick soloist. Ronaldo blazed briefly before falling out with the management. Rivaldo brought his huge talent but also his melancholy to a team that was already beginning to flounder. None of them took on the emotional health of the dressing room as their personal responsibility, in the way that he has. Barça coach Frank Rijkaard, the former Holland defender, has helped transform the mood at the club, turning a fractious squad into a contented and disciplined group. But it was the players themselves who voted in Ronaldinho as ‘our second captain’ after the official captain, Catalan defender Carles Puyol.
Ludovic Giuly, the Corsican winger and former captain of Monaco who, at 28, is one of the more experienced players in a young dressing room, says the atmosphere of relaxed freedom among the players was unknown to him in France. Ronaldinho, he says, sets the tone. Samba can be playing five minutes before they are due out of the tunnel, but this only deepens the players’ sense of responsibility. The moment it is switched off, they know what to do. ‘You have got to give players responsibility, and not restrict them,’ says Txiki Begiristain, the technical director. He was a striker in Johan Cruyff ’s ‘dream team’ that won the European Cup in 1992 and, along with Rijkaard, is the architect of the new regime. ‘In the dressing room, Ronaldinho transmits confidence and the feeling that you can overcome the pressure and that you can do so cheerfully. It’s contagious.’
Ronaldinho’s sense of responsibility shows itself especially with the young players. Leo Messi became the youngest player, at just 17, to score for Barça in a league match on 1 May when Ronaldinho chipped a ball over Albacete’s defence for him to run on to. ‘I started at the same age as him and it’s difficult,’ says Ronaldinho. ‘He’s a child, he’s the youngest of us all. I think when there are jokes and cheerfulness it’s easier to adapt. That’s what some important players used to do with me when I was starting out as a professional. And so I try to do the same when a young player comes to train with us.’
With the title won, there is already speculation as to who will be the next major signing. Laporta has approached Arsenal in the recent past about Thierry Henry and not long ago he told the press that if Henry is to come, he must come now. ‘I don’t usually talk about signings,’ says Ronaldinho. ‘But, well … because of the friendship I have with Thierry and his quality, which any team would like to have, it would be perfect for him to come and help us.’ Rijkaard will have to judge if any more stars can fit into the dressing room. Both Deco, the best team player and chief strategist on the field, and Samuel Eto’o, top goalscorer in the Spanish league, were as good as Ronaldinho this season. Perhaps it would be unwise to disturb the new-found harmony at the club.
‘In his first year there was a Ronaldinho who decided to carry the whole team,’ says Golobart, La Vanguardia’s analyst. ‘I remember him stealing the ball at Barça’s own corner flag - he was defending that far back. That is unthinkable now. And it’s a Ronaldinho that is impossible. Playing like that he could last two, maybe three years. What he did last season was superhuman. And so there was a feeling among the technical staff that they had to make a new team, a team that wasn’t so dependent on Ronaldinho. This led to the arrival of Deco [from Porto]. The presence of Deco has meant Ronaldinho’s performance has dimmed, but we are now seeing a more realistic Ronaldinho.’
Last month, Ronaldinho visited the Salvador Dalí museum in Figueres, north of Barcelona and close to the border with France. In fact, he visited it twice: first alone and then with his mother. ‘There was one picture there that impressed me very much [Gala Contemplating the Sea, in which the artist’s wife, naked and looking out to sea, at 18 metres distance becomes an image of President Lincoln]. If you look at it normally you don’t see anything. But if you do this - he pulls his eyes back to blur his vision - ‘you can see into it. To make something like that, such a fascinating picture, you have to have imagination, you have to be able to think before others. I thought to myself, yes, that is what I have to do. My imagination comes from being with a ball and wanting to do something new, like Dalí as if for the first time. This is my motivation.’
He pauses, then continues, speaking more softly. ‘To have something new with which to outwit my adversary, to achieve victories, that is my objective every day.’ We have been talking for at least an hour but he seems in no hurry to leave.
Just before we part, I ask Ronaldinho how he was affected by the sudden death of his father all those years ago, and how it had shaped his life. ‘We learn from everything that happens in our lives - good things, absences, excesses. I am motivated by wanting to make the dreams of my father come true. When I was very little my father predicted that I would be exactly where I am now. My father said that I would play for Brazil and that I would be the best player in the world. Everyone said, “Bah! How do you know? Your boy is only eight”. My brother was then playing professionally, and everyone would say, “Wow, he’s playing well”. And my father would say, “Yes, he’s good, but watch the other one…” Everyone thought it was just a father talking, no? Eight years old. But today?’
Today, Ronaldinho is worth nearly four times what Barcelona paid for him, if the story of an offer of close to £70m from Chelsea a year ago is to be believed. His contract was quickly renegotiated. A club would have to pay at least £100m to draw him away from the Nou Camp now. So would Barça be prepared to sell him at that price? ‘If you ask yourself, is any football player in the world worth £100m, I think you’d have to say no,’ says Soriano, the club’s vice-president for finance. ‘But then, if you ask are Barcelona prepared to sell Ronaldinho at that price, the answer again is an emphatic no, because now there is an emotional link. And what is the alternative? This player is the number one, the best. He wants to be here. This value is at once important and intangible. You would never want to take the risk of selling him, would you?’
The greatest footballer in the world talks exclusively to IGN about FIFA, playing soccer in a motion capture suit and beating his Barcelona mates at video games.
by Steve Hill, IGN UK
UK, June 1, 2007 - Ronaldinho doesn’t do many interviews. He’d rather let his feet - and indeed the skills which have seen him crowned World footballer of the year three times - do the talking. However, when we were invited to Barcelona to watch the Brazilian midfield maestro slip into a motion capture suit and work his magic for the forthcoming FIFA 08, he took time out to talk to IGN about what it’s like to star in the biggest football game on the planet and how it feels to run around the pitch wearing nothing but a black catsuit covered in ping-pong balls…
IGN: Are you looking forward to wearing the Mo-Cap suit?
Ronaldinho: Yes. I’ve worn it before and enjoyed it. It is a completely different experience and I look funny in that suit. I couldn’t imagine playing a game with all those wires attached to me, that would be impossible.
IGN: When you play FIFA, who do you play as?
Ronaldinho: Normally I play as either Barça or the Brazilian national team. Sometimes I play with teams from other countries, but Barça is the team I like to play with best. Technically, I think Barça is one of the best teams in FIFA - so I’m lucky that I play for them in real life. I usually play as myself, but sometimes I’ll try playing as Leo Messi.
IGN: Which other players in the Barça dressing room play FIFA?
Ronaldinho: A lot of them play FIFA, but I’d say that me and Thiago Motta (Barça’s Brazilian midfielder) are the two which play it the most. We play against each other.
IGN: Who is better?
Ronaldinho: It depends on the day. Some days I win, others Thiago wins. Depends on which team we play too. If you play as Barça then you have an advantage.
IGN: You’ve said that you have FIFA competitions with your friends…
Ronaldinho: I do. They come to my house and we’ll have some dinner, then spend the rest of the night playing FIFA. It can get quite heated.
IGN: What was your opinion of the Champions League final between Liverpool and Milan?
Ronaldinho: It was a good game. There’s a strong Brazilian presence in Milan and I’m happy that my compatriots Dida, Cafu, Serginho, Ronaldo and Kaka were part of winning one of the biggest trophies you can win. I know all of them didn’t play against Liverpool, but they all played their part in Milan’s success.
Apart from joy, what is the most important value in football for you?
Team spirit, togetherness. That is fundamental. And tactics can be important too, you know; coaches help. You need to have a bit of everything. I love football and I love to see a great, quick team move - there’s nothing better.
Of all the players who play for your rivals, which one most represents heart?
Roberto Carlos - he is courage and spirit on the pitch.
Would you play in goal, like Rooney does in the Heart commercial?
No. Never! I’m not good with my hands!
Enjoyment …
I try to enjoy my football as much as I can and I have been very lucky to be able to do what I most enjoy. Football is what I love most.
How important is the team?
It is everything. It’s like life. Your team is like your family. You look to do the very best you can with the help of the people around you. They are the ones that support you, that help you perform. Spirit is vital. The team is vital, both at Barcelona and with Brazil.
Styles of different teams …
Every team has its own style of playing football. I love the style and the feeling of my team [Barça], the atmosphere. My team plays with happiness and a spirit of fun, we have an attacking and skillful style and everyone really enjoys themselves. I’m happy and my team-mates are happy too. Lots of teams play nice football. Real Madrid also have players whose style is a happy one. That’s the kind of style I like. Milan? They have players with a lot of technical ability. I like teams with a happy, open style. Many teams have that, even if they do also have to adapt to the coach.
As he plays with Joga Bonito style as well, would you like a player like Henry at Barcelona next year?
Without doubt. It would be nice to have players with such quality playing with us. I don’t know what will happen but it would be perfect to have another team-mate of such ability.
We have seen lots of images of Joga Bonito involving Brazil. What is it that makes Brazilian football so special?
Every country has its own way of playing and ours has always been like this. Our style is an attacking style, with players who tend to be characterised by dribbling skills. We have a level of technique that sets us apart from other countries and I think we have excellent players.
With that style, everyone says Brazil are favourites for the World Cup. Do you agree?
I don’t think you can talk about favourites. I think you have to go out every game and play your best football, demonstrate with each match that you can win and play well. People can talk about favourites before a competition but once the tournament starts you have to forget about all that and do your best to win.
Does that talk of you being favourites mean extra pressure? Is there a risk that the pressure will force you to later your style a bit, to be more conservative?
No. We have a certain style of play and I don’t think that will change ever. Brazil always tries to play beautifully [Joga Bonito]. We like to have a lot of touches on the ball and that won’t change. There is pressure but we have a group of players with a lot of strength and a lot of experience that know what is needed of them.
Who are the strongest teams at the world cup going to be, apart from Brazil?
There are lots of strong teams there. I think playing at home gives you that little extra motivation, so Germany will be strong. They have the fans on their side and that always means that it is harder for the teams they play against.
You play in Spain of course. What do you make of their chances?
I think they’e a very good side. I know practically all the players in the Spanish national team and I think they have a lot of footballers with a lot of ability. And there are a lot of my club colleagues playing in the national team of course who I think are great players.
Is the prospect of playing against Carlos Puyol a frightening one? He’s bound to give you a kick …
[laughs]. No! Carlos is like a brother to me. Ever since I arrived at Barcelona, we have got on very well, we have a great friendship and I have a lot of respect for him because he’s such a great player. Fear? No. But respect, yes.
Perreira said that Roberto Carlos and Ronaldo were reserving themselves for the World Cup. Is he right?
For me, players never reserve themselves for a competition. Footballers live for the moment. I think they are giving everything they can to help their team out. That’s the way I see it.
Is the criticism that Ronaldo has had unfair? Is he going to be the star at the world cup?
I have the greatest of confidence in him. I think people have to respect him for everything he has done for Real Madrid, for the national team and for world football. As a team-mate I will help him as much as I can so that he can be the man of the world cup once again, juts as he was in 2002.
Increasingly, teams are successful by playing defensively. Are Barcelona the biggest ambassadors for good football?
Every team has a style of its own and ours really suits us right now - it’s a Joga bonito style, very attacking, always trying to score goals. There are other types of football that can get you results but ours is a style that people like to see. I really enjoy playing at Barcelona …
So, is playing for Barcelona doubly satisfying because you are proving that it is possible to win playing nice football?
For me, it’s perfect. But if we had to change our style a bit, I’d accept that too because at the club were all competitors and we want to win. But the lovely thing is that we are competitive playing in a team that plays nice football and I don’t see any reason why we would want to change.
You’ve won it all at individual level in the last two years. How do you keep motivated? Is there a risk of you resting on your laurels?
I never lose the motivation. I have been lucky enough to have won lots of titles with my teams and at an individual level at quite a young age. Now that I know just how nice it is to win those things once, the motivation comes from wanting to win everything lots of times, to do it again and keep on winning.
You’re playing so well that the rumours are incessant. And the name of Chelsea keeps reappearing. What does your future hold?
My future is Barcelona. It’s here. Today, I’m not thinking of anything that’s not Barcelona. I don’t lack anything here; I have all that I could wish for and the club have made a great effort to make sure I am happy. I am contentísimo here.
In a video we see you playing futsal. Has futsal helped you?
Without doubt, playing futsal has helped me. My touch on the ball and my dribbling in particular have come from playing futsal.
You are seen dancing the samba in the advert. Do you like dancing and does Samba help your balance for football?
It has become a kind of symbol for me. I love to dance and while I am not thinking about dancing when I play, Samba maybe does come through I the way I do things on the pitch.
Does playing football professionally still bring you joy?
Yes, it makes me very happy. Football is the greatest thing I have, one of the things that makes me most happy in my life. I have the great happiness of playing at a great club and with my national team.
You are known as someone who always plays with a smile on his face. What can footballers learn from your philosophy of the game?
It is hard to say what other players can take from it … that’s the way I am, I always try to look on the bright side of things and enjoy myself.
Is it strange to play against your Brazilian team-mates, and good friends, in so important a club match?
No, these days I don’t see anything strange about it. With the national team we are compañeros but they have their club and I have mine. And I try take advantage of playing against them because they are very good players and it always motivates you more to play against the best.
Tell me three things that constitute Joga Bonito for you …
Respect your rivals, try to be as honest as possible, and enjoy it as much as you can.
What’s the most important individual quality for a Joga Bonito?
Well, every play has their own qualities but my game is based on touch and dribbling skills …
What’s the best way of celebrating a goal?
There are lots of ways. Every goal brings a different emotion, but for me I love dancing and is there is something that really makes me happy it’s Samba - that’s what I most enjoy and what accompanies me every day.
Is Joga Bonito a very Brazilian thing?
Not just Brazil, there are lots of countries with players who like to play beautifully, but when I see Brazil I see a happy country, one that lives for joy.
DW-WORLD: Germany and Brazil have already been overcome with World Cup fever. Do you have it too?
Ronaldinho: I think the whole world has it. Everyone is already excited. I already have World Cup fever. We hear and see so much about it that it’s impossible not to think about it.
What are your expectations from the World Cup in Germany in general?
Since I have already played in one World Cup, I’m familiar with the dimensions. Regarding the organization, I believe it will be well organized. I saw that last summer at the Confederations Cup, which was a kind of preview of the World Cup.
Brazil’s national coach Carlos Alberto Parreira believes that every country will be fighting against Brazil, since the Selecao is considered the favorite. Which teams do you think will be the most difficult at the World Cup?
I think that all the games will be difficult, from the beginning to the end. It will be hard to advance past the first stage, because everyone will be aiming for us. They will all have a bit of extra motivation. I think that every opponent has to be paid attention to equally.
Which of your three group opponents — Croatia, Australia, and Japan — will provide the most serious challenge?
All three must be taken seriously and deserve our respect.
Will Germany have a chance at getting revenge against Brazil for the final loss in 2002?
(Laughs) It’s possible. You never know what will happen. But I am not so worried about whom we play. The most important thing is that Brazil reaches the final and wins. That is our goal. I am not concentrating so much on our opponent, but on our own team.
What has changed between the 2002 squad and the current one, other than the coach and a few players?
The motivation is different. Those who won in 2002 know how good it is to win a World Cup and are very motivated. Those who haven’t played in a World Cup have heard the whole time how great it is to win one. When these two groups come together, the experienced along with the young players, then I think that is the difference in comparison to 2002.
What do you think about the criticism your teammate Ronaldo has received lately?
I think that a player at his level, a player who fills his role every weekend, deserves a little more respect and a little more peace. But this is good for us Brazilians. It gives us more motivation at the Cup. And I think he will be one of the big names this summer.
You were named the world’s best soccer player in each of the past two years. Recently you said that the ball was your “girlfriend” and that nothing in the world makes you happier than playing soccer. Is it really true that nothing makes you happier? What is it like, for example, when you lose?
That is frustrating. You practice all week, you give it your all and sometimes it’s still not enough. I have always said that the ball is my girlfriend. As long as I play soccer, it will stay that way. There are also other wonderful things in my life. Everything has great importance in its time in my life. But when I have the ball, it’s my girlfriend, and I treat her accordingly — with gentleness.
Barcelona fans say that you have brought magic back into the stadium. How did this close relationship with the fans come about?
I simply feel at home here. I play soccer here like I would in my own backyard with my whole family watching. My family consists of 100,000 people. There is nothing better than to feel loved by 100,000 spectators and to make them happy every match. Nothing is missing here. I do what I love to do most. And I make very many people happy doing it.
But there are also many ugly moments in soccer. During a game at Zaragoza, your teammate Samuel Eto’o threatened to leave the pitch because of racial epithets being chanted at him. What do you think of the problem of racism in soccer?
That is a bad thing. We are always trying to get the point across that that isn’t the right way. We hope that the problem comes to an end as soon as possible. What happened to Eto’o made us very sad in Barcelona. The right thing is that fans go to the stadium to have fun, to support their club and to leave the stadium happy. All people are equal, regardless of skin color, race or whatever. Everyone does their best to make lots of people happy.
At the age of 26, you have probably achieved everything a soccer player dreams of. You are a World Cup champion, play in the largest soccer club in the world and have been chosen best soccer player of the year the past two years. Do you attribute your success to work, destiny or luck?
A little bit of everything. You have to have a little bit of luck, work hard, and I think, when the man up above says that will happen, then it will. When he says that it will happen, and you put your biggest effort into it, then it will be enough to work and the things will then happen.
The 2002 World Cup was Ronaldo’s. Will the 2006 World Cup be Ronaldinho’s?
I think that it will be Brazil’s World Cup. I don’t think about standing out myself or being more or less the best. I simply want to do my best so that Brazil will be the World Cup champions.
When the finest soccer player on Earth arrives for an interview, you half-expect him to be wearing some sort of iconic signifier, like the Pope’s miter or Miss Universe’s sash or a boxer’s championship belt. Something, in other words, that says, Behold, the king of the world.
But here comes Brazil’s Ronaldinho, the two-time reigning World Player of the Year, wearing nothing of the sort. He’s decked out in NBA/hip-hop mode: a black Air Jordan ensemble, LeBron James signature shoes and enough ice — a diamond-studded crucifix, a platinum R10 medallion and a carat-covered watch — to make Allen Iverson blush.
Getting a private audience with Ronaldinho is no small task. But in early May, two weeks before his Barcelona team won the Champions League title and five weeks before Brazil would begin the quest for its sixth World Cup, we sat down in a quiet corner of the Camp Nou stadium in Barcelona for an interview.
(Major props are in order for Hugo Pooley, a first-rate interpreter whose hard work allowed Ronaldinho to express himself in his native Portuguese.)
SI.com: What is the source of your soccer talent?
Ronaldinho: I come from a family where soccer has always been very present. My uncles, my father and my brother were all players. Living with that kind of background, I learned a great deal from them. I tried to devote myself to it more and more with the passage of time.
SI.com: You grew up in the hardscrabble Vila Nova favela in your hometown of Porto Alegre. How would you describe the first field you played on?
Ronaldinho: When I was 7, I started playing with a club. The only grass on the field was in the corner. There was no grass in the middle! It was just sand.
SI.com: Who were your sports heroes growing up?
Ronaldinho: My heroes were always soccer players. My brother [Roberto Assis] was a soccer player, and I lived with him. He was my idol. I always dreamed of being like my brother. So I went with him to training sessions, and he used to talk about Maradona and Pelé and Rivelino. For me they were superheroes because they were my hero’s heroes — my brother’s heroes. Then later Ronaldo, Romário and Rivaldo were all players I worshipped.
SI.com: Unlike a lot of other players, you grew up playing futsal indoors. In what ways did futsal influence your development as a player?
Ronaldinho: It had a great deal of influence. A lot of the moves I make originate from futsal. It’s played in a very small space, and the ball control is different in futsal. And to this day my ball control is pretty similar to a futsal player’s control.
SI.com: Why are you so willing to try new moves and tricks that few other players would even try?
Ronaldinho: I think each player has an individual style. Each is concerned with giving the best to his team, and I think my best talent is dribbling and setting up goal situations, giving an assist or deceiving one of the other team’s players. So I’m always seeking new ways of dribbling, new moves, including fooling the other players so I can give my best to the team.
SI.com: One of your trademark moves is the elástica (in which he jabs the ball to his right, wraps his foot around it and swerves left in the blink of an eye). Did you originate the move?
Ronaldinho: I had already seen the elástica done on video by Rivelino, an old-time player in Brazil, and then I practiced it. Ever since I was little, it’s one of the moves that I’ve liked the best — and one that I’m most confident about when I’m playing. All the fast movements are the ones I like doing.
SI.com: Are there any moves that you’ll claim credit for inventing?
Ronaldinho: There’s something that I never saw anyone else do: the elástica in the air. People do it on the ground, but I like to do it when the ball is in the air. I’ve never seen anyone else do that.
SI.com: You once performed a move in a game against Athletic Bilbao that came to be known as the “double sombrero.” Did you have the intention of doing that when it happened?
Ronaldinho: I didn’t mean to. My intention was to control the ball, to get it out of there as quickly as possible. But since the other player came in very fast I hit the ball over, and he turned, and the ball didn’t do exactly what I wanted it to do. So all I could think of was to do it again.
SI.com: What’s the greatest feeling you’ve ever had on a soccer field? (Keep in mind, this interview took place on May 1, two weeks before Ronaldinho’s Barcelona team won the Champions League title.)
Ronaldinho: For me soccer provides so many emotions, a different feeling every day. I’ve had the good fortune to take part in major competitions like the Olympics, and winning the World Cup was also unforgettable. We lost in the Olympics and won in the World Cup, and I’ll never forget either feeling.
SI.com: There’s been a lot of talk about a Nike guerrilla-marketing spot in which you appear to bang a ball off the crossbar over and over again from outside the penalty box without the ball ever touching the ground. It seems humanly impossible. There’s no way it’s real, right?
Ronaldinho: It’s for real! Of course it’s for real! (Playfully slaps interviewer on knee.) Are you questioning my abilities?
SI.com: You are the World Player of the Year. Are you the best player in the world?
Ronaldinho: I think I have played to a very good standard. I’ve had the happiness of being given that prize for two years running, but I think there are other players of the same level who could be given the prize. I’m happy that my work has been given that award, and I hope it continues.
SI.com: If you had to name your top three players in the world other than yourself, who would they be?
Ronaldinho: I could give you 20 names. Each country has two or three great players. On the Brazilian national team there are several who could be given that prize. You want names? Ronaldo, Adriano, Zinedine Zidane, Thierry Henry, Francesco Totti, Antonio Cassano, Pablo Aimar, Lionel Messi. Each country has two or three high-quality players who could be included in the top group.
SI.com: You seem to have a much better relationship with Barcelona head coach Frank Rijkaard than you did with your previous club coach, Paris-St. Germain’s Luis Fernandes. What’s the difference?
Ronaldinho: There’s a great difference. I was fortunate to play at PSG, but it took me a long time to adapt to the new culture, the new country, the new language. And the soccer they played was very different from the kind I was used to playing in Brazil. In Brazil it’s very technical, whereas in France there’s a lot of strength involved. So I had to adapt when we played other clubs. At PSG I didn’t have the same degree of freedom to develop my style or the kind of experience that I have now.
SI.com: I’ve read that you have a deep appreciation for the history of soccer, that you know the full lineups of Brazilian and European teams from back to the 1970s. What’s the best Brazil World Cup team ever, in your mind?
Ronaldinho: There are several. I think the 1982 team [a hugely entertaining Zico-led team that fell in the quarterfinals to Italy] was one of those that we had a great deal of hopes in. We thought they had a very beautiful style. They played the most attractive kind of soccer. And I think the 2006 team is comparable to the ‘82 team.
SI.com: Brazil is the runaway favorite to win its record sixth World Cup. Does this team have the chance of being the best Brazil team in history?
Ronaldinho: I believe so, because we have been playing as a team for seven or eight years. We’ve basically had the same players since 1999, and we’ve had a great deal of contact. So there’s a history there.
SI.com: You were very close to the ‘02 Brazil head coach, Luiz Felipe Scolari, whom you’d known for years since your days together at Gremio in Brazil. Scolari was more of a friend than a coach. Current Brazil coach Carlos Alberto Parreira is tougher. How have you adapted to the new atmosphere under Parreira?
Ronaldinho: Scolari was also very tough. I had a very good relationship with him because he’d known me since I was very young. It was tough with him because he always demanded a lot of me. Parreira is doing the same. It’s great to work with Parreira because as a coach he has a tremendously successful history, and he knows a great deal about soccer. And off the pitch he’s also a person who is great to be friends with. He has taught us a lot.
SI.com: Could you describe the influence your late father, João, had on you?
Ronaldinho: He was one of the most important people for me and in my career, even though he died when I was very young. He gave me some of the best advice I’ve ever had. Off the field: Do the right thing and be an honest, straight-up guy. And on the field: Play soccer as simply as possible. He always said one of the most complicated things you can do is to play it simple.
SI.com: What are your impressions of the United States?
Ronaldinho: I love the United States. I’ve been there with the Brazilian national team and with Barcelona. I’ve never had the satisfaction of going there for free time, but that’s one of the plans I have, to go there and get to know the U.S. And to see basketball, which is something I love. One of my dreams is to see live basketball there, but I’ve never had the time or the opportunity.
SI.com: Your full name is Ronaldo de Assis Moreira. Who was the first person to call you Ronaldinho (Little Ronaldo)?
Ronaldinho: They always called me that when I was little because I was really small, and I played with players who were older than me. When I got to the senior national team there was another Ronaldo, so they started calling me Ronaldinho because I was younger.
SI.com: Do you ever wish to be called simply Ronaldo? That is your name, after all.
Ronaldinho: I’ve never thought of that. I like to be called Ronaldinho [in soccer]. I’ve never had any problem with that. But a lot of my friends call me Ronaldo.
SI.com: I’ve read that your favorite film is the Fernando Meirelles movie City of God. Why?
Ronaldinho: Because I think it’s a film that is a good reflection of reality in a favela. There are some very true-to-life scenes that show the truth of what I experienced and lived directly. It’s a very faithful reflection of what happens in favelas. So it’s one of the films that I found the most moving.
SI.com: You’re very close to your brother Roberto [Ronaldinho’s agent], your sister Deisy [his press coordinator] and your mother, Miguelina. Do you want to get married and have your own family?
Ronaldinho: I’d like that. I have the happiness of having a wonderful son [one-year-old João, from a relationship with a Brazilian dancer], but I would like to have a family and lots of children someday. But I’m also happy with the life I live today.
In an exclusive interview with FourFourTwo, the best player in the world reveals all on Brazil, Beckham, Barca and the brilliant new boy who’s like his little brother… but plays for his deadliest rivals.
Can you think of any reason why Brazil won’t win the World Cup?
[Smiling] People say we’re favourites and I can see why. We won the competition last time, we’re number one ranking in the world and we qualified from a very strong South American group in first place, above Argentina. But I don’t think there’s such a thing as a favourite when the competition is so tough. It’s a knockout competition and there are always surprises. France were favourites for the last World Cup and Senegal beat them in the first game! As a team, we work hard, but we respect others. It would be disrespectful for me to say we’ll win the World Cup, but we’ve got a very good squad of players and we work hard together and give it our best.
The Brazil players always seem so happy together too. Are you faking it for the cameras?
Look, not all football players are friends but I can honestly say that we are. I love training with these players. The ambience and the mood is perfect. As soon as we enter the changing room we don’t talk about anything else but the games. We try to separate things, not to think about anything that’s not football and I think we’re doing fine. We’re focused entirely on our job to win the World Cup. We’ve spoken about it and we’re excited. Maybe we are an even better team than four years ago. We smile when we train and we practice tricks - silly tricks. Robinho keeps the ball up using his shin! He’s very young, but already one of the greatest footballers in the world. Ronaldo has been one of the best players in the world for a long time now and the consistency in his scoring is remarkable. Look at his goals since he arrived in Spain. Around 30 a season since he joined Madrid, and he scored many when he played for Barcelona. Roberto Carlos is the best in his position and we have others like Adriano who is young and powerful. Many players. Brazil never struggles to produce good footballers!
Because of that, there’s a lot of pressure on you though?
That’s true. The people of Brazil have great expectations, whether it’s in the World Cup, the Copa America or just a friendly game. They don’t like it when we play badly or don’t win. We carry their hopes, their dreams. When we play in Germany they’ll be waiting for us to return with the trophy. They will organise parties as if it is going to happen. Sometimes they forget that there are other great teams who could win the competition.
Does their criticism motivate you or annoy you?
It depends. There is criticism that doesn’t achieve anything and criticism that is useful and can be motivating. You can learn from constructive criticism. I’m a young player and I still have a lot to learn. We talk a lot in the changing room, we analyse what we do right and wrong.
With all the pressure, do you still enjoy football as much as you did when you were a kid?
I just love playing with the ball as I have done since I’ve been a small child. I’m happy with a ball at my feet. I cannot remember life without a ball at my feet and I’ve always had a ball. It was the best present I had as a kid, the one that made me the happiest. My friends liked football but not as much as me. They used to get tired of it. The only one who never got bored playing football with me was my dog ‘Bombom’. He was restless. Like me! He was a real companion, we were always together. I don’t think my mum was keen on us playing football all the time because we always broke something. She used to ground me, tell me off and say: “You’re not playing football at home.” But we carried on.
How does it feel to be the best player in the world?
[Shaking his head] I don’t even feel that I’m the best in Barça. I know I’m important, but the best? no, not really. I do what I can and others do things I don’t do.
It seems to be working. You’ve recently signed a new contract with Barça until 2010?
I have, but it doesn’t matter if you have a contract because as soon as the directors and the fans don’t want you anymore, you’re out of the club. A contract is not for you to relax for a long time. I signed because I’m happy here and I want to win more trophies with Barça, to win the league again and the Champions League. I think we can win both.
Would you ever consider leaving Barça to play in England?
It’s a great league and I had the chance to go to Manchester, but I decided to join Barça and I’m happy with that decision and so are my family. I can’t ever see myself leaving here. I’d be happy if everything stays the way it is now in my life. There is only one thing I would change in my life is that I would like my dad to be alive so that he could see what I am.
What’s it like to be Ronaldinho, to be recognised wherever you go?
It’s good fun. I find people’s reaction really amusing. Sometimes it looks like they’re going to have a heart attack [laughs], or that they’re thinking “I’m either dreaming or drunk”, and some people start shouting. It’s funny.
Can you remember seeing your name in a paper for the first time?
I remember it perfectly. I was 13 and it was because I scored 23 goals against a team. I still have the article. Well, my sister does. She collects everything that is published about me.
There was a time when you were always in the papers, when you had a reputation for loving nightlife…
It’s true; I used to go out more. But now I could not even tell you the most popular club in Barcelona. I go to a Brazilian bar near home lately, which is quieter, to eat Brazilian food. I don’t like to go to the cinema because I can’t be still. I can only be still when I sleep.
You once said: “I’m an ugly but nice guy.” That’s a strange thing to say…
Let’s see. I’m not good looking, that’s evident. I couldn’t make a living as a model but I do like myself. I’d better do! Because that’s the way I am. The kids used to pick on me when I was little because of my teeth, but it didn’t give me a complex. Sometimes I used to get angry, but they are the teeth I have and they are going to stay like that. My mum was determined that I wore braces and I should have listened to her before. I have to open my whole mouth to breathe well. I get tired sooner, so now I’m going to wear braces to breathe better.
Are you always so upbeat? When was the last time you got angry?
I can’t remember. I’m happy. You have to enjoy life. I want to have many friends and continue doing what I like. And if I get angry, it only lasts five minutes, not long.
You became a father in 2005. Not many people knew about your son?
Because I don’t want to speak about Jaoa in public [Jaoa was born in Brazil to a former girlfriend, a dancer who has performed on Brazilian television shows]. I believe that even though I am happy to be a father, it is a private experience. I do want to have him near me but for the moment this is a very important time for me as a footballer. We are playing well with Barça and with Brazil we have the World Cup.
What do you think of your rivals in Germany? Can England challenge?
England are one of the best teams in the world. I know all about the players, more some than others. Beckham is a great player, maybe the best in Spain so far this season. He has many parts to his game. He runs, tackles, passes beautifully and crosses the ball. He looks really settled in Madrid now. I like him. He’s always very friendly with me and we get on, even though we can’t communicate properly. He’s good friends with Ronaldo - though I’m not sure what language they speak because Ronnie can’t speak English!
Which English players impress you most?
Rooney is another very important player for England. I had never met him until a few months ago but now we keep meeting at award ceremonies or to promote the computer game. Maybe we’ll meet on a pitch some time. That would be fun. He’s an excellent person. The World Cup could be for him to show how great he is because he’s one of those players who can change a game with some magic. Lampard is influential too. He can drive a team. We played against him last season in the Champions League and he’s been one of the most consistent players. I’ve not spoken to him much, but I know he is of high quality.
Which other players do you most admire?
There are the greats like Zidane - and I was going to say Maldini but he doesn’t play for Italy anymore even though he’s still the best defender in the world - but one name I would watch out for in Germany would be Messi from Barcelona. He’s like my little brother here. He might be from Argentina and I’m from Brazil, but I look after him. He’s going to be excellent.
