SOCCER GREATS

Soccer superstar Ronaldinho was a member of Brazil's 2002 World Cup championship team and twice won the FIFA World Player of the Year award.
Ronaldinho was born Ronaldo de Assis Moreira on March 21, 1980, in Porto Alegre, Brazil. His father, João Moreira, was a former professional soccer player who also worked as a welder in a shipyard, and his mother, Miguelina de Assis, was a cosmetics saleswoman who later became a nurse. Ronaldinho's older brother, Roberto Assis, was also a professional soccer player; Ronaldinho was surrounded by soccer from the day he was born. "I come from a family where soccer has always been very present," he says. "My uncles, my father and my brother were all players. Living with that kind of background, I learned a great deal from them. I tried to devote myself to it more and more with the passage of time."