Ronaldinho Born: Football's Smiling Genius
Ronaldinho grew up playing beach football in Porto Alegre, Brazil, barefoot. He was cut from Grêmio's youth academy at 13 for being too small. They changed their minds when they saw him play again a year later. He won the World Cup with Brazil in 2002, then the Ballon d'Or in 2004 and 2005 — consecutive years — at Barcelona, where he played some of the most joyful football ever seen at the highest level. The Nike advertisement where he juggles a ball off the crossbar three times without it touching the ground, released in 2005, was initially assumed to be digitally manipulated. It wasn't. He retired officially in 2018 and was arrested in 2020 in Paraguay for traveling on a forged passport. He served 32 days in a Paraguayan prison.
March 21, 1980
46 years ago
Key Figures & Places
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