Professional soccer player. Born as Ronaldo de Assis Moreira on March 21, 1980 in Porto Alegre, Brazil. Ronaldinho's father, Joo Moreira, was a former professional soccer player who also worked as a welder in a shipyard, and his mother, Miguelina de Assis, was a cosmetics saleswoman who later became a nurse. Ronaldinho's older brother, Roberto Assis, was also a professional soccer player; Ronaldinho was surrounded by soccer from the day he was born. "I come from a family where soccer has always been very present," he says. "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."
In particular, Ronaldinho idolized his father. "He was one of the most important people for me and in my career, even though he died when I was very young," he says. (Joo Moreira suffered a fatal heart attack when Ronaldinho was eight years old.) "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."
Ronaldinho began playing organized youth soccer at the age of seven, and it was as a youth soccer player that he first received the nickname "Ronaldinho," the diminutive form of his birth name Ronaldo. "They always called me that when I was little because I was really small," the player explains, "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."
Growing up in a relatively poor, hardscrabble neighborhood, Ronaldinho's youth teams had to make due with makeshift playing fields. "The only grass on the field was in the corner," Ronaldinho remembers. "There was no grass in the middle! It was just sand." In addition to soccer, Ronaldinho also played futsal — an offshoot of soccer played indoors on a hard court surface and with only five players on each side. Ronaldinho's early experiences with futsal helped shape his unique playing style, marked by his remarkable touch and close control on the ball. "A lot of the moves I make originate from futsal," Ronaldinho says. "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."
Ronaldinho quickly developed into one of Brazil's most talented youth soccer players. When he was thirteen years old, he once scored a ridiculous 23 goals in a single game.
While leading his team to a variety of junior championships, Ronaldinho immersed himself in Brazil's long and glorious soccer history, studying past greats such as Pele, Rivelino and Ronaldo and dreaming of following in their footsteps. Then, in 1997, a teenaged Ronaldinho won a call-up to Brazil's Under-17 national team. The squad won the FIFA Under-17 World Championship in Egypt and Ronaldinho was selected as the tournament's best player. That same year,
Ronaldinho signed his first professional contract to play for Grmio, one of the most celebrated teams in the Brazilian league. Two years later, in 1999, Ronaldinho was invited to join the senior Brazilian national team to compete in the Confederations Cup in Mexico. Brazil placed second in the tournament and Ronaldinho won the Golden Ball Award as the tournament's best player as well as the Golden Boot Award as its leading goal scorer.
Firmly established as a star on the international stage, in 2001 Ronaldinho left Brazil for Europe, signing a contract to play for Paris Saint-Germain in France. A year later, he participated in his first World Cup on a loaded Brazilian squad that also featured Ronaldo and Rivaldo. Ronaldinho scored two goals in five matches as Brazil defeated Germany in the finals to win its fifth World Cup title. The next year, in 2003, Ronaldinho fulfilled a lifelong dream by joining FC Barcelona of the Spanish league, one of the world's most storied clubs, and winning the legendary No. 10 jersey typically worn by the squad's greatest creative player. In 2004 and 2005, Ronaldinho won back-to-back FIFA World Player of the Year awards, the sport's highest individual honor. In 2008, Ronaldinho left Barcelona to join another of the world's most prestigious clubs, A.C. Milan in Italy's Serie A.
In the 2006 World Cup, Ronaldinho headlined a very talented Brazilian squad that entered the tournament with sky-high expectations. The tournament ended in disappointment, though, when France knocked Brazil out with a stunning upset in the quarterfinals. Despite his strong desire to play, Ronaldinho was not included on the 2010 Brazilian team that competed in the World Cup in South Africa.
In 2005, Ronaldinho and Brazilian dancer Janaína Mendes had a son, named Joo after Ronaldinho's late father.
An absolute wizard with a soccer ball, Ronaldinho is widely considered the greatest player of his generation and one of the greatest players in world history. He says that his soccer career has been an emotional roller coaster filled with high highs, low lows and a lifetime of unforgettable moments. "For me soccer provides so many emotions, a different feeling every day," Ronaldinho says. "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."
