Ronaldinho: the strange origin of the nickname of the Barcelona star

The real name of Ronaldinho is Ronaldo de Assís Moreira. Despite no one knows him for him complete name, it is the one that figures in the documents and how he is officially named. The reason why everyone on the world calls him Ronaldinho, his most popular nickname, has a large story.

Everything was known publicly in FC Barcelona, the club that Dinho joined in July 2003 from Paris Saint-Germain after a transference of $25 million. The offensive midfielder played 207 matches there, scoring 94 goals and giving 71 assists. Five years later, his time at Barça ended and the idol left to AC Milan.

But before that happened, the playmaker received his nickname. When he scored the first official goal at Brazil, the most famous narrator from that country decided to call him Ronaldinho Gaúcho, as there was already a Ronaldo (Nazario) in the soccer world, and he was born in Río Grande do Sul, and Gaúcho is how they call people from there.

Ronaldinho himself revealed the story in an interview and revealed that nobody in his family called him that way during all his childhood. Finally, when he arrived to Barça the world started to know this long hair skilled player and his name travelled through-out all the world.

There was a Ronaldo already

Maybe Ronaldinho would have been called Ronaldo, his real name, if it wasn’t for Ronaldo Nazario. The strikers real complete name is Ronaldo Luis Nazario de Lima and he arrived to the top European leagues in 1996, when he moved to FC Barcelona. He was publicly known as Ronaldo and that prohibited Ronaldinho to have his same name.