One
of the most beautiful definitions that underlined the huge potentiality
of this 21-year-old was given by writer Manuel Vázquez Montalbán:
“Ronaldo is a boxer with Fred Astaire's feet whose knockouts come easy.
Every industry needs to have new gods from time to time. With him soccer
has a god for the next ten years”.
Ronaldo is a perfect machine.
He scores, he entertains
and, above all things, he has an incredibly efficient weapon hidden in
his speed.
Often, when one sees him
disorienting a handful of opponents with feints and tricks with the ball,
one wonders what extraordinary synchronism can govern the correlation between
brain and legs in him. Impossible solutions, that one would not even manage
to think of, are found by the Brazilian champion with an uncommon skill.
The story of Luis Nazario
da Lima, on the stage Ronaldo, was not always glorious. For years the road
was the Phenomenon's real school. He was born at Bento Ribeiro, one of
Rio de Janeiro's north-western suburbs, and was soon more attracted by
a ball of rags than by school.
The first successes as a
footballer coincided with his farewell to studies.
His acrobatic performances
earned him Cruzeiro's attention, a Brazilian football club with long traditions,
that did not hesitate to pay out the equivalent of 900 million lira for
a boy of just 17.
The costs of the operation
which led Ronaldo to become the greatest footballer in the world rise beyond
measure.
At the beginning he just
earned 9 million per year. His current signing on fee at Inter, instead,
is 6 billion and a half per season.
However, after just one
year and 54 goals scored in as many matches, the Phenomenon was ready to
reach Europe. He was bought by PSV Eindhoven, an important Dutch football
team, which paid out 10 billion lira for him. Despite the people's support
and the impressive number of goals he scored, Ronaldo did not manage to
get in synch with the life in Northern Europe. The desire to get culturally
closer to his Brazil pushed him to go and play for Barcelona.
It was 1995 and Ronaldo
hit the mark in Spain too. The number of goals he scored continued to be
industrial. His most unbelievable goal was scored to Logrones after an
incredibly series of dribblings that stunned half team. That performance
finally made Massimo Moratti, Inter's current president, fall in love with
the player who, in the end, went to play for the Milanese club delighting
Inter's supporters. His extraordinary ballistic and athletic skills were
already known. Little was known of his personality instead. This aspect
proved to be even more amazing than the professional one.
This 21-year-old Brazilian
is always available for people and always smiling, aspects which did not
let down those people who claimed he had remained humble despite the billions
earned.
He spends one hour every
day to sign autographs and personally answers the letters he receives via
the Internet saying: “It's a pleasure before being a duty.
Not long ago I was like
those kids and I can still remember how disappointed I was when great champions
looked down on me or unwillingly wrote their names on my notebook”.
Even popularity is part
of his status and leaves him rather unperturbed. “I like it. I'm not like
those who get annoyed when they're photographed. It's part of the game”.
A game that Nike, the powerful multinational of sport apparel, decided
to play by binding the entire life of the Brazilian with a contract equal
to over 3 billion lira per year. The Phenomenon managed to accepthis huge
business built on his person and to find his own philosophy. “You don't
become good for your talent or for money but for hunger or love for what
you do. When I was a kid I had both. Today, fortunately, I'm not so hungry
anymore, but I'm still in love with my job”.
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