The utterly beguiling genius of Ronaldinho
An international star of the sport, one of the most exciting players to ever grace a football pitch, gifted with the most Brazilian of Brazilian flair - Ronaldinho has retired from football.
Watching Ronaldinho play made you want to be a footballer, a footballer exactly like Ronaldinho - a guy who became the best player in the world without looking like he was even trying.
He floated through matches doing as he pleased, always smiling, making everything he did look like the most fun thing in the world.
here's something about the mythology of the man that will make us remember him as a sort of flawed genius or wasted talent - the Chosen One who didn't fulfil the prophecy - but that makes him infinitely cooler. Anyway, he won the World Cup. And the Champions League.
Sure, to have had Ronaldinho at his peak for longer than the few short years he was the absolute king would have been great. But don't we want our rock stars to be slightly cursed by imperfections they'll never overcome? That ephemeral period where Ronaldinho ruled the world will last a lifetime in the memory.
As naturally gifted a player as there has ever been, Ronaldinho would apparently sometimes not even bother turning up to training at PSG, as ex-teammate Jerome Leroy claimed: "[He] would just turn up on a Friday for the game on Saturday".
There are stories that Ronaldinho would arrive at the training ground in the same clothes he went out in and be found sleeping in dark rooms at Barcelona's complex after partying during the night, not so much burning the candle at both ends as streaking through the mid-2000s like a firework.
Nostalgia and hindsight tend to unduly colour our impressions of players (see Wayne Rooney in about five years time), but the Brazil trident of Ronaldinho, Rivaldo and Ronaldo? On the same pitch at the same time? Even then it was clear this was something special.
Going into the 2002 World Cup, the 22-year-old Ronaldinho was a player wanted by every club in the world. His value only increased after some incredible performances in that tournament. His goal against England, a moment David Seaman never really recovered from, is as vivid in my mind now as if it had happened yesterday.
Barcelona outbid Manchester United for Ronaldinho's signature in the summer of 2003, paying PSG €30million while rivals Real Madrid opted for the vastly more marketable David Beckham.
Ronaldinho scored his first goal for the club in a midnight kick-off, dribbling from the halfway line to thunder a shot from distance off the underside of the Sevilla crossbar.
By 2005 there was little doubt that Ronaldinho was the best player in the world. He took on something of superhuman status, magical on the pitch and off it - one clever advert in which the Brazilian hit ball after ball against the crossbar helped fuel the mystical aura.
At a time when less of the population were as familiar with post-production editing techniques, few were certain on first watch whether this was real or not.
Clearly, what we will remember most about Ronaldinho are the unbelievable things he did on the pitch and his ability to define matches in an instant.Chelsea beat Barcelona 4-2 over two legs in the Champions League in 2005 but the moment that stands out was Ronaldinho's solo goal:
The shimmy, the minimal backlift to leave the entire team humiliated with a perfectly placed, powerful strike. He operated on a different level to anyone else, injecting games with a spirit of fun and creativity, providing the spark of excitement that made every match memorable. "Some goals are not about the skills; they are about the moment you’re living," he said later of the goal.
This was a player who left the Bernabeu to a standing ovation from the home fans while starring for Barcelona in a 3-0 destruction of Real Madrid - putting him in the company of few others to have been awarded such a reception.
Diego Maradona managed it once and another ludicrously talented Barcelona number 10 has done it since...
"Even then I knew he was a better player than me," admitted the Brazilian. It was Ronaldinho who set up Messi for his very first goal in Barcelona colours:
Ronaldinho's lack of discipline (or enjoyment of life, depending on your point of view) has often been blamed for his early peak and failure to sustain his place at the summit of world football.
His career took something of a downward spiral - but didn't plummet - after leaving La Liga. He won Serie A with AC Milan after moving there in 2008 and achieved a lifelong dream by winning the Copa Libertadores with Atletico Mineiro in 2013. The best had passed but when he wanted to turn it on, Ronaldinho did.
Since then Ronaldinho floated around the Mexican league and appeared for Fluminense in the Brasileirao a few times, before remaining a professional footballer in name only from 2015 until Wednesday 17th January 2018, without actually being employed as one.
It's a fitting end to a stellar career. A rocket ascent to the heights of football, a shooting star who scattered magic dust on all those below his path, who cooled on descent back to earth. It doesn't matter how old Ronaldinho gets, in our hearts and minds he will always be the Ronaldinho of the mid-2000s who smiled as he tore apart defences and made the very serious sport of football seem like it might actually be really fun.
