Interviews Part 3
Ronaldinho 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 luch 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 huminatarian 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 celebritydom, 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 quiter 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 everyobdy 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 interuppted 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 al that, I can only be smiling. There’s no other way.”
First the World now I want Europe
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.”
