Ronaldinho: The Best Brazilian Player

Ronaldinho Profile:

The Brazilian soccer player Ronaldinho, whose official name is Ronaldo de Assis Moreira, was born on March 21, 1980, in Porto Alegre. The attacking midfielder is 1.82 meters tall and usually wore the number ten, but at  AC Milan he wore the number 80, which stood for the year he was born.

In his youth, he first played for “Gremio Porto Alegre”, his home club. During a language stay in French-speaking Switzerland from April 1993 to October 1994, he played numerous championship games for the FC Sion U14 team. His brother, nine years older than him, was already a professional player there at the time.

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Ronaldinho’s professional career began in 1997. In the same year he won the U-17 World Cup with the Brazilian national team. Ronaldinho played for four years in the Brazilian first division with Gremio and then moved to the French club Paris Saint-German in 2001. 

Due to his outstanding achievements, he also became internationally known in the following period. In 2002 Ronaldinho celebrated his greatest success: In the final of the soccer world championship 2002 in Japan and South Korea he and his team won against Germany.

In 2003 he went to the Spanish top club FC Barcelona. Just a few months later, he received the “World Footballer” award, and in the 2004/2005 season, he was also the Spanish champion with FC Barcelona. 

In 2005 the player was declared not only the best footballer in Europe but also a world footballer again. A little later, he was the highest-earning soccer player in the world. His contract was prematurely extended by two years, the transfer fee was set at a gigantic 125 million euros.

In 2006 he was again Spanish champion with FC Barcelona and finally also Champions League winner. After that, my career went downhill. Stubborn injuries were given as the reason, but rumors of a dissolute nightlife and an unprofessional lifestyle made the rounds.

In August 2008 Ronaldinho moved to AC Milan despite the contract extension, the transfer fee at that time was around 25 million euros. There, however, his performance gradually waned. At the 2010 World Cup, he was no longer part of the Selecao. 

In 2011 he moved to Brazil to the “Clube de Regatas do Flamengo”. But even there he was unable to build on his earlier successes: since June 2012 he has been playing for the Brazilian first division club Atlético Mineiro in Belo Horizonte.

Other sources of information about Ronaldinho

Ronaldinho’s player profile on Wikipedia

Qualification for football legend: weighting of the successes achieved by Ronaldinho