Ronaldo Luis Nazário de Lima (pronounced [xo'nawdʊ lu'iz na'zaɾjʊ dʒɪ 'limɐ]; born September 18, 1976. in Bento Ribeiro, Rio de Janeiro), generally referred to simply as Ronaldo, is a Brazilian professional footballer.
Having begun his professional career at Brazilian side Cruzeiro Esporte Clube, Ronaldo signed with PSV Eindhoven in 1994, and after that he had tenures with FC Barcelona, F.C. Internazionale Milano, Real Madrid C.F., and A.C. Milan.
A former member of the Brazil national football team, Ronaldo has played 97 international matches, and was part of the Brazilian squads that won the 1994 and 2002 World Cups. He is the highest goalscorer in the history of the World Cup with 15 goals, having surpassed Gerd Müller's previous record of 14 at the 2006 tournament.
Ronaldo has won three FIFA World Player of the Year awards in 1996, 1997, 2002 and is one of two men to have won the award three times, along with former Real Madrid teammate Zinedine Zidane. He also won two "Ballon d'Or" awards in 1997 and 2002. Ronaldo has been nicknamed "The Phenomenon" (Portuguese: O Fenômeno, Spanish: El Fenómeno). Pelé named him one of the 125 greatest living footballers in March 2004. In 2007 France Football named him in their best starting XI of all time.
Ronaldo made his international debut for Brazil in 1994, in a friendly match in Recife against Argentina. He went to the 1994 FIFA World Cup in the USA as a 17-year-old but did not play. He came to be known then as Ronaldinho, since Ronaldo Rodrigues de Jesus, his older team-mate on the tournament, was too called Ronaldo (and nicknamed Ronaldão to further distinguish them). Another Brazilian player, Ronaldo de Assis Moreira, who is widely known as Ronaldinho, would come to be called Ronaldinho Gaúcho when he joined the Brazilian main national team in 1999.
In the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta, Ronaldo played with the name Ronaldinho ("little Ronaldo") on his shirt, since centre back Ronaldo Guiaro, two years his senior, was one of his teammates. Ronaldo won bronze medal in Atlanta.
Voted the FIFA World Player of the Year in 1996 and 1997, he scored four goals and made three assists during the 1998 FIFA World Cup. The night before the final, he suffered a convulsive fit. He was initially removed from the starting lineup 72 minutes before the match but he requested to play and was later reinstated by coach Mario Zagallo. Ronaldo did not perform well and he was injured in a collision with French goalkeeper Fabien Barthez. Brazil lost the final to hosts France 3-0. Adrian Williams, professor of clinical neurology at Birmingham University, said that Ronaldo should not have played, saying that he would have been feeling the after effects of the seizure and that "there is no way that he would have been able to perform to the best of his ability within 24 hours of his first fit -- if it was his first fit."
Ronaldo won the Golden Shoe as the top scorer in the 2002 FIFA World Cup with eight goals. He scored against every team he came up against except England in the quarter finals and scored two in the final against Germany, helping Brazil win their fifth World Cup title. He also equaled Pelé's Brazilian record of 12 World Cup goals, adding to the four he scored in the 1998 tournament.
On June 2, 2004, Ronaldo scored a hat-trick of penalties for Brazil against archrivals Argentina in a CONMEBOL qualifier for the 2006 World Cup.
In the 2006 FIFA World Cup, although Brazil won their first two group games against Croatia and Australia, respectively, Ronaldo was repeatedly jeered for being overweight and slow (Brazil President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva questioned the national coach "Ronaldo is fat or isn't he?"). Nonetheless, coach Carlos Alberto Parreira kept him in the starting lineup in face of calls to have Ronaldo replaced. With his two goals against Japan in the 2006 FIFA World Cup, he became the 20th player ever to score in three different FIFA World Cups. Ronaldo scored in the 1998, 2002 and 2006 World Cups. On June 27, 2006, he broke the all-time World Cup Finals scoring record of 14, held by Gerd Müller after scoring his 15th World Cup goal against Ghana in the 2006 FIFA World Cup Round of 16. He also equaled a much less talked about mark: with his third goal of the 2006 World Cup, Ronaldo became only the second player ever (Jürgen Klinsmann being the other) to score at least three goals in each of three World Cups. However, Brazil were knocked out by France 1-0 in the quarter-finals.
The fallout after Brazil's disappointing performance in the World Cup saw Brazil appoint former captain Dunga as manager. His attempt to end the star culture of the Brazilian national team saw him drop Ronaldo not only from the starting line-up but from the squad altogether. He hasn't been selected since. He is fifteen goals away from becoming Brazil's all-time top-scorer.(Wikipedia)
Top Greatest Ever Footballers Headline Animator
Ronaldo Best Brazilian Footballers
Posted by
rian
Labels:
Ronaldo