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ronaldo returns

what happened when the world cup legend came home to brazil

The fence became famous by a sort of mass collective decision, the instant its concrete posts were bent and snapped by delirious fans and players celebrating The Goal. Live on television. Live in front of 44,000 spectators. Symbolic, iconic, shattered. As if it was the gale of elation The Goal unleashed that broke the fence, not the weight of people pulling on it. As if four inches of green concrete post could be snapped by emotion alone.
The fence wasn’t even in a famous football ground like Rio de Janeiro’s Maracana, but a concrete bowl of a stadium called the Prudentão, in a nondescript city called Presidente Prudente that half of Brazil had never heard off and that nobody cared about, least of all its 95,000 inhabitants. The next day Alfredo Penha, Presidente Prudente’s secretary of municipal works, made it official. “It was a day that will always live in the memory of Presidente Prudente,” said Penha. “It is impossible to measure the importance of this goal to the city. The goal and the fence of the Prudentão are going to become tourist attractions. Everybody is going to want to see them.”
The fence was plunged into the spotlight. It was photographed for a national newspaper. One Sunday in March 2009 it became a celebrity. When the goal was scored, people all over Brazil ran out into the streets celebrating. People still talk about The Goal. And when they do, they talk about the fence…

40 degrees and the terraces were swimming in sweat. Sweat glistened on the bare back of the guy with the mullet haircut and the heavy metal tattoos. Sweat steamed up sunglasses. Sweat glistened on the shoulders of the two Hawks who shoved their way down the terrace in their black and white shorts and vests and baseball caps, their muttered “can I pass, brother” an instruction, not a request. Sweat on foreheads and knuckles. No shade anywhere, no jostling in the attentive crowd. Three tiny, fluffy clouds that stubbornly refused to go anywhere near a greasy yellow sun, sizzling like a giant egg in a hot-plate sky. 44,000 packed in to watch two of São Paulo’s biggest teams, Corinthians and Palmeiras, slog through the heat. Football like this is battle. No glamour. Just a long trudge through tedium with the drums keeping time. And the rotten egg smell of stale male sweat.
The heat swallowed the first half. It was so hot that the teams stopped to take a water break. Nobody got anywhere near the goal – bar one Palmeiras header directed straight at Corinthians goalkeeper Felipe. Ronaldo wasn’t even on the pitch. He had played at the palaces of European football - the Camp Nou in Barcelona, the San Siro in Milan, the Bernabeu in Madrid. Now he was in this scruffy, unprepossessing, concrete bowl of a stadium, 580 kilometres from São Paulo, in the baking heart of Brazil. How did he feel? His face gave nothing away. He sat on the bench with the other Corinthians substitutes in an orange bib and the fans chanted his name: “Ronaldo. Ronaldo. Ronaldo.”

The torcidas – the organised supporters clubs - swarmed over the concrete terraces. They had covered everything in colour: green for Palmeiras, black and white for Corinthians. Their baterias, drum corps, kept up the beat – metallic tambourines tat-tat-tatting like bullets, a dustbin-sized bass drum, the surdo, or ‘deaf one’, booming, the forced march of the samba.

The Palmeiras torcida, the Mancha Verde, or ‘Green Stain’, waved neon green balloons and a 50-metre green Palmeiras banner shaped like a giant’s football shirt, each short sleeve as big as a man. The Gaviões da Fiel, Corinthians’ Hawks of the Faithful, unfurled a shiny, new two-tone banner and hands fluttered up to touch it as it blanketed the terrace and blotted out the burning sun. Flares belched black Corinthians smoke. An acrid stink floated over the pitch. And the drums pumped rhythms like a heart pumping blood.

In his one appearance since signing in December 2008 Ronaldo had played less than half an hour for Corinthians. Questions about him hung in the sticky air. Was he still great – the Phenomenon of the Italian and Spanish leagues, the hero who battled back from crippling knee injuries to win Brazil the World Cup in Tokyo in 2002? Or was he just 32, fat and faded - the overweight, clumsy figure police encountered when they were called to a Rio Love Motel the previous April, to find the one-time most famous footballer in the world arguing over money with three transvestite prostitutes whose silence he had just tried to buy?

Many Corinthians fans – and there are 25 million of them in Brazil – saw him as a saviour. But the Hawks were unconvinced. He had yet to prove his loyalty. Since signing for Corinthians nine weeks earlier, Ronaldo had hogged the headlines but delivered nothing. He had played less than half an hour of football. Just training and trying to lose weight. Just that goofy half smile as the camera crews and journalists circled, zeroing in on his salary (enormous by Brazilian standards, modest for him), the number of Ronaldo Number 9 shirts already sold (tens of thousands), and his weight. Mostly his weight. His nickname in recent years was ‘Gordinho’, or ‘Fatty’. Brazil’s biggest newspaper, Folha São Paulo, discovered he used specially baggy shorts to hide his girth. The rate he was or was not shedding flab was a subject of national speculation. “Ronaldo loses two kilos in five days,” screamed a Folha headline in early January.

It wasn’t always like this. After Pelé, Ronaldo Luis Nazário de Lima is the second highest goal-scorer of all time. He has scored more World Cup goals – 15 – than anybody else. He was three times voted FIFA’s player of the year – the best in the world. Now after 14 years playing in Europe, he was back in Brazil for what looked like the final act of his once glittering career. For years, injuries had derailed him. And always the knees. In February 2008 another knee gave way, crumbling under a ruptured tendon while he was playing for his last European club, AC Milan. “He fears for his career,” said club boss, and Italian president Silvio Berlusconi at the time.

Then came the thing at the motel. The row was about sex and blackmail - Ronaldo had picked up the hookers then apparently tried to buy their silence when he released they were actually men. Two accepted the money – around £300 each. The third refused, demanding $15,000, later alleging that the footballer had tried to buy cocaine. One of the prostitutes, Andreia Albertine, was photographed holding up what she claimed was Ronaldo’s driver’s licence, just to rub it in, just to make sure there wasn’t any doubt. The headlines went around the world. So did the questions. “Ronaldo said he is not good in the head and that he is going through psychological problems because of his recent surgery,” said Carlo Augusto Nogueira, the Rio police inspector who questioned him. For a superstar footballer whose list of ex-wives and girlfriends included some of Brazil’s most glamorous celebrities, it was not a good look. “It was the worst decision of my life,” said Ronaldo afterwards, concentrating on contrition rather than explanation. “It’s going to stain my personal life forever.”

Half time. A micro-light buzzed the stadium, cheerleaders skipped through their routines. On the cinder track by the pitch, the entertainment was a one-legged black guy in a Brazil kit playing an endless game of keepie up, standing on his good leg, bouncing the ball on his stump, his dreadlocks bouncing. I went to buy water from a man crouched by a cardboard box full of sealed plastic cups, besieged by a scrabble of men shoving and pushing. There was a noise and a rush and everybody flattened themselves against a wall. A line of riot police inched through the crowd, shields drawn, batons at the ready. Tension crackled as they came and went.

In a Copa do Brasil game on Tuesday March 4th against Itumbiara, Corinthians won 2-0. Ronaldo came on as a substitute and played for 27 minutes. He didn’t do a lot. But the press still went mad. As he was warming up on the touchline, mid-game, a TV crew shoved a camera in his face. “I’m focussed on the game,” he said politely, and turned away. Interview over. Later he spoke to TV Globo. “I suffered a lot last year. I thought a lot about whether I would return to playing or not, before I came to Corinthians,” he said. “This is just the beginning, it doesn’t stop here.” Such a weight of expectation, so little delivered.

Second half. Heat fading. Noise getting louder. The goal came three minutes in, when the Palmeiras Number Nine, a 20-year-old hotshot called Keirrison, sent his fellow forward Diego Souza into the Corinthians penalty area. The ball bounced high and left Corinthians goalkeeper Felipe stranded out on the edge of his six-yard box. Souza rounded him and scored. The noise that the Green Stain made drowned everything out for a moment. Then the Hawks got louder. “Don’t stop,” they shouted. It is one of their favourite chants. “Don’t stop. Don’t stop. Don’t stop.” Like their team, the Hawks never give up. They are at their loudest when their team is losing. They are the loudest torcida in Brazil.

The thing at the motel hadn’t stopped Ronaldo from partying. Recent years for him seemed to have been more about disco balls than footballs. In July 2008, a photograph taken in an Ibiza nightclub showed a bloated Phenomenon, holding a drink in one hand and a cigarette in the other. Soon after joining Corinthians he was out again, at an upmarket São Paulo disco called The Pink Elephant, surrounded by girls. It was 5am when he left. Again, the pictures, snapped on mobile phones – Ronaldo on the dance-floor, a fuzzy blonde with her arm on his shoulder.

When Corinthians went to Presidente Prudente, just weeks before, for training, their plane narrowly survived a freak thunderstorm on the way and was diverted to the city of Londrina. It was a Thursday night, and under an 11pm curfew, the team went to bed early. Ronaldo didn’t. He rolled in at 5.30am after another disco night out. Photographed at training the next day after arriving late, he looked sweaty, overweight, anything but world class. Unimpressed, Corinthians fined him. Antônio Carlos, the technical director of football for Corinthians, resigned a few days later when it emerged he had been Ronaldo’s drinking partner that night.

Second half rolling on. Still 1-0 to Palmeiras. Darkening sky and a breeze blowing up, a bank of clouds casting an ominous shadow over the stadium. The micro-light had gone. So had the sun, suddenly, as it does in the tropics. With the stupefying heat gone, the game was picking up. The floodlights were on but at one-nil down a sense of desperation was beginning to sweep across the Corinthians supporters. Nobody wanted to lose a derby match to their São Paulo rivals. Not like this. Their goalkeeper Felipe sat on his haunches, mortified, alone in his half. Where was Ronaldo? He was still on the bench. “Ronaldo!” shouted the fans. Then their chant: “Timão!” It is the Corinthians nickname, ‘Big Team’. Corinthians counter attacked with every player they had. The Hawks drum corps pounded. Their blood was up.

Finally, Ronaldo was on the pitch and the wave of noise drowned out everything but the here, any thought but this game, any moment but this one. He got the ball, he started to move - he was hacked down. Minutes inched past. But everything seemed to be rushing towards something. Time does funny things when every second is being counted. It goes fast and slow. Ronaldo just looked slow. He moved sluggishly. When his team-mates ran, Ronaldo jogged. When they jogged, he walked. “Let’s go Ronaldo,” roared the Hawks. He had the ball on the edge of the box. In a flash of movement, he whipped around, beat two players, let rip an evil, curling shot that ricocheted audibly against the bar. Uproar. “Don’t stop. Don’t stop. Don’t stop,” went the war chant. The drums boomed. Corinthians kept coming. Time raced and stood still. Hearts pounded with the drums.

With 47 minutes gone in the second half time had surely run out. The game lost – one-nil to Palmeiras. Barely time for one last corner. Ronaldo at the far post. As the ball arced in, his head met the ball, the ball met the net, and the sky fell in. Gooooooaaaaaaaal! Pandemonium on the pitch as players surrounded the scorer. On the terraces everybody leaping, jumping, shouting. Besieged by his team-mates, Ronaldo ran towards the green fence that surrounded the pitch and began to climb it. Thousands of Hawks poured down the terraces towards him and began climbing it as well. Everyone met at the fence, which had simply not been built to withstand this sort of pressure. It buckled and snapped. The riot police pulled the Hawks away. The Corinthians players pulled Ronaldo away. Seconds later, the match ended a draw. The fence was left broken and hanging.

But the fence meant The Goal. And The Goal marked the comeback of Brazilian football’s favourite prodigal son. This was his first Brazilian club goal in 14 years. This was a goal for football, for glory. Even, if it doesn’t sound too fanciful, for Brazil. Brazilian football is like this, as concerned with the drama and emotion as it is with the dazzling ball skills and golden shirts. The country’s ravenous media chews up and gobs out sporting celebrities as quickly as it creates them – new and aging football stars; agents and managers; models, actresses, transvestites, anybody connected, somehow. The fence didn’t stand a chance. It was plunged into the spotlight. On a blisteringly hot Sunday in March 2009 it became an instant celebrity, its broken concrete posts symbolic of a goal that everybody wanted and nobody expected.

We streamed out of the ground afterwards. In the middle of the multitude, balanced on a chair like a rock in a river, was the keepie-up black guy with the dreadlocks in his Brazil shirt, collecting coins. “Hey people! 50 centavos!” he shouted. In the chaotic early evening gloom fans from both clubs scrambled up a grassy bank to their coaches and stumbled into each other. Fights burst out. Disorganised police struggled to keep the Green Stain and The Hawks apart with horse charges. A helicopter shuddered overhead. Stun bombs exploded with deafening bangs. We hid behind a police car, next to a cowed line of women and children. A riot policeman got behind us, bopping shoulders with his plastic baton, ordering “disperse, disperse”. We marched down a side road, grinning with fear, past families standing open-mouthed at their doors, listening to the noise.

At a little hole-in-a-concrete-wall café Corinthians fans were eating sandwiches, drinking beer, and watching the TV show Terceiro Tempo – ‘Third Half’ – on TV. The show kept showing the goal. A strip across the bottom of the screen read “RONALDO SAVES BIG TEAM”. “Forgetting modesty for a moment,” said Ronaldo later, “I dominated the moment (of the goal) with perfection. If I didn’t know how to do this, I wouldn’t have got to where I’ve got to.” The Phenomenon was back. His third comeback had begun.

The next day, the Folha de São Paulo newspaper interviewed the two workmen fixing the fence, Emerson Duarte Silva, 24, and his assistant Adriano Barbosa de Oliveira, 15. Both were Corinthians fans. Both had been at the game. “It is an honour to fix the fence that The Phenomenon broke,” Emerson grinned. “I was at the game and I shouted so much at the goal that I got toothache.”

Still smiling, we left the little café and headed for the car. It was pitch dark now. Wandering down the street, dreads bouncing, was the Keepie-up Guy. Away from the crowd, he had attached a prosthetic leg to his stump. It was brown, but a different tone of brown to his skin. Was that why he didn’t wear it? Or did it just look better bouncing a ball on the stump? In his hand he bounced a plastic bag of the coins he had collected. Wrapped tight, jingling quietly, the size and shape of a football.

c. Dominic Phillips, 2010

ronaldo returns

what happened when the world cup legend came home to brazil

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