The Hindu : Sport : Time Ronaldinho grasped his moment

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Jun 01, 2006

Sport

Sport

Time Ronaldinho grasped his moment

Rohit Brijnath

It is an iconic picture, yet it captures no classic dribble, it shows no goalkeeper in sinewy stretch. A thousand words it does not speak. No, it is far more precious than that.

It is taken at the 1982 World Cup, and Maradona stands, his back to us, ball affixed to left foot, contemplative. He may be smiling. For facing him are six Belgians closely bunched, like a collection of anxious matadors wondering if they've got enough numbers for a fair fight.

The picture is important, for it symbolises the awe he evoked, it represents a time when this urchin Picasso started to reopen the conversation on who the greatest footballer in the world was. After the 1986 cup, Pele would not stand alone.

Twenty years later, a lissome, laughing assassin from Brazil wants to expand the argument to include him. Ronaldinho has FIFA player awards, a Europe best player prize, won the Spanish and Champions leagues. Ho-hum. To be on first name terms with Edson and Diego, he must do nothing more strenuous than dominate this cup.

Ronaldinho's splendour requires no World Cup confirmation, one might think. A month of invention in Germany is nothing for a man who has spent two years advertising his skills, playing with, and against, the world's most celebrated players.

For the Barcelona football orchestra, the Brazilian has been soloist yet also conductor, goal scorer and fashioner, his elastic excellence not produced on whim but consistently. Weekly his boots tap out symphonies. It is said in training he once hit a crossbar four times in succession, deliberately, and while that videotape has its sceptics he is the only man who makes the idea not completely ridiculous.

Ronaldinho has in fact won a cup (in 2002, and scored a bewildering goal against England that in light of his subsequent artistry appears less fluke and more design), but one might say he did not leave on it the stamp of his grinning genius.

Complicated business

Cups and greatness is anyway a complicated business. Some great players have won cups (Beckenbauer, Zidane, Charlton), some have played magnificently but come home empty (Platini, Cruyff), some have never been to World Cups (Best), some have had great cups but never been great players (Rossi, Schillachi, Suker).

But Ronaldinho will want to look beyond these names, to Pele and Maradona, and for that he must put on a show. They did. In 1986, Maradona was the world's most famous human, though as he ghosted past defenders you wondered if he had arrived from some alien zip code. No man wins a cup alone, but Maradona alone made us consider the possibility.

Pele was different, genius stretched over time, with a champion's nose for the occasion: not for nothing was his farewell cup in 1970 his most polished. Unlike Maradona, he was surrounded by a skilful cast, unselfishly nourishing their greatness (setting up two of the four goals in the 1970 final) but also standing out (scoring in the 1958 and 1970 finals).

An exquisite capacity

Like Pele and Maradona, Ronaldinho has the exquisite capacity to alter matches. Indeed, when it comes to deciding greatness, football is partial to attacking players (of course exceptions like Beckenbauer and Franco Baresi remain), possibly because they devise goals, that most precious of commodities. Like Pele and Maradona, Ronaldinho must also now sign his name on this cup.

As Pele has said: "Ronaldinho still has a lot to prove... he is an excellent player but he hasn't proved it yet in a tournament like the World Cup. He now needs to show the same form there that he does for his club."

For all the tribal enthusiasms of club football, Barcelona cannot compare with Brazil, in desperation of audience and importance of cause. Ronaldinho will know that.

He will know, too, he wears a colour honoured in cups before by so many men, from Amarildo to Zagalo, and an entire alphabet in between. He will know also that not just a Spanish city or a South American nation watches, but a world, an expectant one, a judgemental one.

Now under this pressure which Pele wore, and bruising that Maradona bore, he must keep his gleeful smile and produce his best.

Football's beautiful one must grasp his moment.

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