Gary Meenaghan BBC Sport
RIO DE JANEIRO — Elasticos, rabonas, no-look passes and that trademark toothy grin — at his peak, Ronaldinho was simply irresistible.
Throughout the 2000s, the Brazilian conquered the football world with the kind of play YouTube was made for and, over the past decade, he has won — and lost — more than most players manage in their entire career.
After a premature 2011 exit from AC Milan aged 30, he eclipsed Neymar in the younger man’s backyard, won an historic Copa Libertadores, appeared in Arab reality shows and Russian supermarket adverts.
There was even a Hollywood film with Jean-Claude van Damme.
This year, he lost his freedom, spending his 40th birthday locked in a Paraguayan prison.
Back in January 2011, when Ronaldinho left Milan for Flamengo, his Italian club’s coach, Massimiliano Allegri, called the decision “a life choice”.
As was the case during two years at Paris St-Germain, his partying had forced a parting of ways.
In life, as in football, Ronaldinho has never strayed too far from the spotlight.
Born Ronaldo de Assis Moreira, Ronaldinho grew up in Vila Nova, a ramshackle neighbourhood in the southern Brazilian city of Porto Alegre.
His mother Miguelina sold cosmetics door-to-door, while father Joao worked nights in the car park of local side Gremio.
When older brother Roberto Assis signed professional terms with them aged 17, the club provided a luxurious villa.
Assis would show pride — and glimpses of his future role as Ronaldinho’s agent — by responding to personal praise with: “My brother’s even better.”
The hype grew when, aged 13, the scrawny kid who practised dribbling against his dogs Bala and Bombom, scored 23 goals in a school match.
Within four years, Ronaldinho had helped Brazil win the Under-17 World Cup, and by 19 produced one of the finest performances of his fledgling career to help Gremio beat rivals Internacional in the State Championship final.
Before his 21st birthday, he finished behind only Romario, as top scorer in the country’s top division, and attracted a £40m bid from Leeds United.
In February 2001, with Assis acting as intermediary, he signed a pre-contract with Paris St-Germain, as a free agent, incensing Gremio supporters.
The man known as O Bruxo (The Wizard) began to bewitch spectators across the globe.
In 2002 he helped Brazil win the World Cup.
A year later he swapped Paris for Barcelona, from where he would illuminate the European game, winning the Champions League and two league titles during five years with the Spanish club, while acting as mentor to Lionel Messi.
In 2011, he returned home, joined Flamengo and, when the club’s administrative problems led to salary delays, Assis terminated his brother’s contract and sued the club for £14m.
Four days later, as fans burned his effigy, a media helicopter spotted a familiar figure training with Atletico Mineiro.
His deal with Coca-Cola was cancelled after they watched him drinking Pepsi during a news conference.
This time, he would let his football do the talking.
Playing alongside current Everton winger Bernard and former Manchester City striker Jo, Ronaldinho scored four and assisted seven as Atletico reached the Libertadores final for the first time in the club’s history.
“It’s like playing chess with someone who can put you in checkmate in three moves,” Jo told Brazilian TV in 2016. “In fact, he told me if he couldn’t put me through on goal three times per game, he’d buy me a crate of beer.”
Jo finished top scorer during the Libertadores campaign, but Atletico went into the second leg of the final trailing 2-0 to Paraguay’s Olimpia.
They equalised with three minutes left and forced penalties.
Ronaldinho, scheduled to take his side’s last spot-kick, was spared the task as his side triumphed 4-3 and secured Atletico a first major title since 1971.
The victory put Ronaldinho in a class by himself: the only footballer in history to win the World Cup, Champions League, World Player of the Year, Ballon d’Or and Copa Libertadores.
One year later, in July 2014, immediately after winning South America’s equivalent of the Super Cup, Ronaldinho asked Atletico to let him leave.
A new adventure awaited, in Mexico.
“Every Friday he would finish a game, take a private plane and go to Cancun or Playa del Carmen,” Patricio Rubio, who played alongside Ronaldinho at Liga MX side Queretaro, told Chilean TV.
Ronaldinho’s Mexican experiment lasted only nine months and, for the first time in his career, ended without a trophy.
A similarly fruitless spell back in Brazil at Fluminense followed and, bothered by boos, he voluntarily terminated his contract in September 2015, two months into an 18-month deal.
Ronaldinho only officially retired three years later, aged 37 in January 2018.
And, then, came news from Paraguay of his arrest alongside Assis for possession of false passports.
Detained at a high-security prison, on the periphery of the capital Asuncion, the pair paid US$1.6m bail and were transferred to the luxurious Palmaroga Hotel.
They remain there while investigations continue into a possible money laundering network.
Ronaldinho’s life in prison involved sharing a wing with a corrupt former Paraguayan FA president, taking selfies with security guards and making video calls alongside a former policeman jailed for protecting drug traffickers.
Local press also excitedly reported a prison-yard match ended 11-2, with the Brazilian scoring five goals, providing six assists and winning a 16kg suckling pig.
Since switching his sparse jail cell for a presidential suite with jacuzzi and wi-fi, life has been more isolated.
Yet while the toothy grin may still be there, this is no laughing matter.
Ronaldinho spent a career picking holes in defences, now he needs a watertight one to ensure he avoids up to five years behind bars. Prosecutors have until 6 September to conclude their investigations. — BBC Sport.