page_title: Ronaldinho
section_title: Outside football
hierarchical_section_title: Ronaldinho / Outside football
caption_attribution_description: Català: Ronaldinho, jugador del Futbol Club Barcelona, durant el partit FC Barcelona-Racing de Santander. Español: Ronaldinho, jugador del Futbol Club Barcelona, durante el partido FC Barcelona-Racing de Santander. English: Ronaldinho, FC Barcelona's player, during the match FC Barcelona-Racing de Santander.
context_page_description: Ronaldo de Assis Moreira, commonly known as Ronaldinho Gaúcho or simply Ronaldinho, is a Brazilian former professional footballer and ambassador for Barcelona. He played mostly as an attacking midfielder, but was also deployed as a forward or a winger. Often considered one of the best players of his generation and regarded by many as one of the greatest of all time, Ronaldinho won two FIFA World Player of the Year awards and a Ballon d'Or. He was renowned for his technical skills and creativity; due to his agility, pace and
  dribbling ability, as well as his use of tricks, feints, overhead kicks, no-look passes and accuracy from free-kicks.
  Ronaldinho made his career debut for Grêmio, in 1998. At age 20, he moved to Paris Saint-Germain in France before signing for Barcelona in 2003. In his second season with Barcelona, he won his first FIFA World Player of the Year award, as Barcelona won the 2004–05 La Liga title. The season that followed is considered one of the best in his career as he was integral in Barcelona winning the UEFA Champions League, their first in fourteen years, as well as another La Liga title, giving Ronaldinho his first career double.
context_section_description: Ronaldinho has had endorsements with many companies, including Nike, Pepsi, Coca-Cola, EA Sports, Gatorade and Danone. One of the world's highest paid players, in 2006 he earned over $19 million from endorsements. Having endorsed Pepsi for much of his career and appeared in commercials with David Beckham, Thierry Henry and Lionel Messi, Ronaldinho signed a deal with Coca-Cola in 2011, however this was terminated in July 2012 after he was caught drinking Pepsi in a news conference.
  Ronaldinho has featured in EA Sports' FIFA video game series, appearing on the cover of FIFA Football 2004, FIFA 06, FIFA 07, FIFA 08 and FIFA 09. At the beginning of his career Ronaldinho signed a lucrative 10-year deal with sportswear company Nike (wearing Nike Tiempo R10 boots designed for him). He has appeared in Nike commercials, including the 2002 "Secret Tournament" commercial (branded "Scorpion KO") directed by Terry Gilliam. His 2005 Nike advertisement, where he is given a new pair of boots and then proceeds to juggle a football and appears to repeatedly volley it against the crossbar of a goal and recover it without the ball touching the ground, went viral on YouTube, becoming the site's first video to reach one million views. A 2010 Nike commercial, Write the Future directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu, features him executing a number of stepovers, which became a viral video re-enacted and shared millions of times.
  A wax sculpture of Ronaldinho was unveiled at Madame Tussauds Hong Kong in December 2007. Ronaldinho has had an official role with UNICEF, the United Nations Children's Fund, since February 2006. In 2011, he was recruited by the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS to promote awareness among young people of the disease and how to avoid it. In March 2015, Ronaldinho was the sixth most popular sportsperson on Facebook, behind Cristiano Ronaldo, Messi, Beckham, Neymar and Kaká, with 31 million Facebook fans. Ronaldinho also has over 50 million Instagram followers.
  On July 6, 2018 Ronaldinho announced a partnership with company World Soccer Coin (WSC) to develop a new cryptocurrency, the Ronaldinho Soccer Coin, with WSC claiming that the profits of the coin will be used to football projects such as "Ronalinho Digital Stadiums."
caption: Ronaldinho (pictured with Barcelona in 2007) has been a UNICEF ambassador since February 2006.
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