Ronaldo Fenômeno: ‘I felt much safer on the field’ – 12/16/2023 – Mônica Bergamo

The tension regarding whether or not Ronaldo would give an interview began months before the official request was even made. Renata Netto, executive director of RonaldoTV, the former player’s YouTube channel, with whom the report was in contact, said that everything depended on Cruzeiro’s result in the Brasileirão.

The Belo Horizonte football team was the first to have Ronaldo as a professional player, in 1993, the year in which he won the Copa do Brasil and the Campeonato Mineiro, and which turned him into a star. The following year, Ronaldo was selected for the Brazilian team, at the age of 17, in the World Cup in the United States.

He didn’t enter the field, but he was there, along with four-time champions Romário, Dunga, Cafu, Bebeto, Leonardo, Raí and Taffarel. And defender Ronaldão, from São Paulo, who made Ronaldo Nazário’s first nickname Ronaldinho.

Playing with the national team’s number nine shirt, Ronaldo became R9 to differentiate himself from another Ronaldinho, the gaucho, who began to shine shortly afterwards. The definitive nickname, Phenomenon, was given by the Italian press, when he played for the Internazionale team, Inter Milan, between 1997 and 2002.

After 28 years since his debut as a professional player at Cruzeiro, Ronaldo bought the team, which, this year, was at risk of being relegated to the second division, Série B of the Brazilian Championship, the one that most people don’t pay attention to. , which has games between lesser-known teams like Guarani, Mirassol, Avaí, Criciúma, Ituano.

Furthermore, the games are not broadcast on TV Globo, the prize money is much lower, the sponsorship value too, and it doesn’t have the same glamour. Ronaldo bought Raposa, Cruzeiro’s nickname, in 2021, when he decided that he was the man who needed to lead the club out of its biggest crisis. In April of this year, with firm management and safe decisions, Raposa returned to the first division, and was once again among the elite of Brazilian football.

But the year was complex, the Brasileirão was difficult, the suspense returned: Cruzeiro could be relegated once again. And until the end of this football soap opera, there is no chance of an interview with Ronaldo. But then, on November 27th, in Goiânia, Cruzeiro beat Goiás 1-0 and left the risk zone. Ronaldo’s team was saved and the chances of this conversation improved considerably.

“I felt much safer when I was on the field than now, when I’m not part of the team. I can always trust myself, but football has its surprises, that’s what makes the result so exciting,” said the former -player, last Thursday (14). “This is my role here on Earth, this is my mission, I really believe in it.”

The interview finally took place, but it was not without emotion.

It was the first day of the third edition of the Galácticos Open, an event that Ronaldo and his wife, Celina Locks, created to raise money from sponsors for the Fundação Fenômeno, which was created in 2010, but has been operating since 2012. When Ronaldo and Celina started dating, nine years ago, the foundation was already in full swing.

When they decided to live together, Celina became an ambassador for the NGO. But it was only just over two and a half years ago that Ronaldo invited her to be honorary president of the foundation. Today, Celina is the one who actually runs the business, and it was her idea to hold the tennis tournament at their house, a huge property on a closed street in Morumbi.

She is the one who explains what, after all, Fundação Fenômenos does with the money it raises from the brands that support the event and the auction of objects donated by supporters. Among them there is, for example, a piece of grass from the Yokohama stadium, in Japan, where Brazil won the fifth championship in 2002, with two goals from Ronaldo against Germany. In addition, there are also experiences such as trips and meetings with Ronaldo’s famous friends, on the last day of the tournament.

“We help projects linked to sport and education that already exist in communities, but which often don’t have all the money they need or don’t know how to act, how to manage resources”, says Celina, sitting in a gray leather armchair in a large living room decorated in black and white tones.

The floor is made of wooden parquet, and the other armchairs that complete the space are white with zebra designs. On the walls, there are framed black and white photos, as well as an immense triptych on the equally immense wall, with doors that open to the backyard, where the swimming pool, sauna, a full kitchen, a dark wooden pub and the tennis court are located. .

That’s also where the Christmas tree is, a natural pine that goes almost to the ceiling, which must be more than three meters high. The lighting is all indirect. Lampshade light, to be more exact.

Everything is modern and tasteful, contrasting with the colonial-style construction of the house, with a marble staircase at the main entrance and columns supporting the second floor. The dining room, which is just ahead, has a rectangular black table with ten seats and red chairs. A chandelier that looks like a mobile made of black and very exuberant bedside lamps sets the atmosphere.

I took photos with my cell phone of these parts of the house, which were visible to those walking around the event. But at one point I was approached by one of the many people dressed in the turquoise t-shirt of Fundação Fenômeno, responsible for organizing the Galácticos Open, who warned me that, for security reasons, it would not be allowed to show the couple’s privacy or their works of art. art.

I had arrived at the event around 1:30 pm, a time indicated to me by the advisor who takes care of communications for Ronaldo’s companies. After almost five hours wandering around the outside area of ​​Ronaldo and Celina’s house and watching not particularly exciting tennis games, while waiting for some statement about whether or not the interview request would be granted, I thought it worth checking whether there was an air of former player’s response.

Ronaldo was in front of me. Former players Kaká and Juninho Paulista were playing a match and he was watching. It was just a matter of poking and asking a question. But that’s not exactly how it works, said the advisor, “you have to speak at the right time, otherwise it won’t happen.” Ronaldo receives hundreds of interview requests every month, if he didn’t have someone to filter them, he would spend all his time responding to these demands.

When I got there, countryman Marcos Belucci, a duo with his brother, Thomás, was playing a match against pagodeiro Douglas Souza. Belucci won. Then, the most disputed game of the day, between Kaká and Juninho Paulista, was won by Juninho in the tie break, that is, in the tiebreaker. The last game was Ronaldo against a boy called Dandan Ractt, a friend of Ronald, his eldest son, aged 23, and it was the shortest of the three. Ronaldo won quickly.

The waiting continued. I had already spoken at length with José Henrique Melo, trainer of Ronaldo’s four border collies, Paçoca, Dorothy, Nina and Bella. Paçoca, the favorite, who sleeps in bed with the former player, is the mother of the other three, all females, because “Ronaldo doesn’t like males”. He goes three times a week to train the dogs, who take swimming lessons in the house’s pool.

José Henrique throws the balls into the water and encourages the dogs to jump to catch them, so they need to swim well and quickly to get out of the water without losing the ball. When they leave, they get a snack, which he keeps in the cake. “The right way to give a dog a treat is to leave it in the palm of your hand and show your hand open, otherwise the dog, even the gentlest one in the world, could bite the person’s finger”, he teaches.

I had already heard Ronaldo tell his great friend, the gamer NinexT, that his son Ronald was “training like hell, he’s already lost 25 kilos”, in addition to conversations from event participants who compared the business classes of different airlines, he had already taken several cappuccinos at the Café Por Elas stand, a company that only sells coffees from female producers and employs 16-year-old girls who live in shelters as young apprentices. So, when they turn 18 and need to leave the shelters, they already have some work experience.

When Ronaldo entered the game I gave up waiting, called a taxi and left. At the first corner, my phone rings, it’s the executive director of RonaldoTV. “Ronaldo will talk to you as long as you also interview Celina, who runs the Foundation.” I ask the driver to turn around and leave me back where I had just left. Celina is filming Ronaldo’s game, which looks pretty easy for the five-time champion. Very friendly, she invites me to sit in the black and white living room, where we talk for a long time.

She tells me about her life as a model, her brand of beauty products, her role at Fundação Fenômenos, how doing good in Brazil is an ultra-bureaucratic process. Articulate and fun, Celina doesn’t deviate from any subject, not even the inevitable for any woman in her thirties: children. “I have that desire, yes, but I’m in no hurry. My life is very busy.”

Celina is blonde, tall and very thin, and has worked as a model since she was a teenager. “I have German ancestry, so everything is longer on my body, my legs are a little longer, my feet are much bigger. Furthermore, my metabolism is very fast, which favored my work as a model. But I think it’s great that fashion has changed in recent years and now has several body types on the catwalks, in campaigns.”

She met Ronaldo through mutual friends almost ten years ago. He soon became interested, but Celina didn’t want anything. “You can’t be a football player, right? But he always corrected me: ‘Former player’.”

Celina and Ronaldo got married in a church in Ibiza in September. This is the former player’s fourth marriage, but the first in church. “I’ve always been Catholic, but I’d never gotten married in church. Celina saw this gap and I thought it was a great idea,” says Ronaldo. “I looked for the documentation and it was the biggest problem, I called my mother and she said that my father didn’t want me to be baptized, I discovered that I had never been baptized. I couldn’t get married in church without that. So I had to be baptized after I was old, which was really cool too. It was this year, at the São José church, in Jardim Europa.”

The wedding, in Ibiza, “in a tiny church”, as Celina says, “was very beautiful, our two families were there, our closest friends, it was very romantic”.

“There weren’t many people,” says Ronaldo. “Three hundred people, a really cool group. I know it seems like a big number, but if you compare it to other weddings, it’s very few people,” he explains. “It was a magical week, five days of programming, we alternated a day of partying and a day of rest. I’m not the same anymore, but we made the ceremony there in Ibiza goosebumps.”