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Ronaldinho And The Rumour Mill


The start of the season has been rocky at Can Barça (‘The Barça House’ in Catalan) with some sea changes still being hotly debated despite a summer spending spree that enriched the Blaugrana squad.

First it was Rijkaard who seemed to be on the verge of heading out of Camp Nou after some rather unproductive showings; after Deco seemed likely to leave now it’s Ronaldinho who’s hyped as about to pack his bags.

With the media storm ruffling pages around the world over what’s up with – and in for – the number 10, Goal.com has a look at the current situation with a view to rumours, cycles, mammary glands, ‘l’entorn’, mirrors, mountains and molehills…



Frank Rijkaard is no stranger to weathering storms on the Catalan coast, the Dutch Coach having heard crowds baying for his blood after a lacklustre first six months seemed to threaten Joan Laporta’s new Blaugrana project. The arrival of Ronaldinho at Barcelona hadn’t had the desired effect either and both were openly questioned – although not by the end of that debut season.

Four years later both have started their season under attack from various sectors of the Spanish press. Some of the slings and arrows have come from predictable sources – the Madrileño press – but lately a lot of ‘friendly fire’ has been raining in from Catalan sources. Recently both Ronnie and Rijkaard have been targets for multiple flak attacks.

The Coach was given – according to the grapevine rather than official sources – an ultimatum to either improve the unexciting way the team was playing or start to clear out his desk and looking for another job. A week later the tactician is sitting pretty after two good home wins against Olympique Lyon in the CL and Sevilla in La Liga.

Now the focus has shifted, after the slight Henry commotion over slow integration into the team, Domenech calling him up and almost setting Laporta’s fuse alight, and although the preseason saw Deco being labelled as the disgruntled star, threatening to take his game elsewhere if he wasn’t appreciated, the spotlights have shifted again.

It’s Ronaldinho’s turn to be clicked around into the firing chamber as he goes from untouchable first eleven material to, as in Dunga’s Brazil, an unquestioned talent who nevertheless needs to work for a place in the staring line-up. This switch of status has also been accompanied by backstage ‘revelations’ of a supposed love of the nightlife.

There is no hard evidence of this but the roots seem to be clear: a desire to find underlying causes for the fact that the number 10 isn’t showcasing his best game match in, match out. Although it is a patent fact that no player has ever been able to recreate his best work on a continual basis the rumour mill begins to grind away.

Last season saw one of the favourite devices click away as photos were used to show that the Gaúcho had gained weight and the rules introduced by Joan Laporta and Txiki Beguiristain led to insinuations about nightclubbing. This dovetailed perfectly with criticisms of the Brazilian Seleção in Germany – and mud sticks.

With the spotting of Ronaldinho’s brother (and agent) Assis in Milan and the hatching of theories of a head-spinning AC Milan offer there was suspicion that the Brazilian was hot to trot off to new pastures. This season has also seen substitutions that have caused some to sniff smoke and yell that Dinho’s Blaugrana contract is on fire.

This line of deductive reasoning goes that the number 10 has been taken off in all but one of the matches he’s played for Barça this season, only staying the full ninety minutes in the 0-0 Racing Santander opener, and was absent in the recent Sevilla game. The conclusion is therefore that Ronaldinho is less important now than he was before.

Proponents of this theory point to three key substitutions – during the 3-1 victory over Athletic Bilbao (for Milito in the 78th minute), in the goalless Osasuna draw (for Xavi in the 66th minute), as well as the 3-0 win over Olympique Lyon (for Iniesta in the 65th minute) as being signs that Rijkaard is toying with the idea of replacing Ronaldinho.

It’s been said that this is part of a cycle, and that Ronaldinho’s cycle at Barça is coming to an end, and it’s an argument that football fans have frequently heard – from Johan Cruyff’s Dream Team to Florentino Perez’s Galacticos and also applied to Frank Rijkaard as the Blaugrana Coach after the 2006 Champions League was won.

Rijkaard himself can count on personal experience of being written off yet coming back to triumph. In Cruyff’s Ajax he was seen as unable to stand the pressure and left in a huff in 1987, ricocheting from Lisbon’s Sporting Clube to Zaragoza before landing at AC Milan and being helped by his Coach, Arrigo Sacchi, to reach newer heights as a player.

Rather than junking Ronaldinho, Rijkaard seems to be prepared to weather the disapproval of a sector of Barça and all that surrounds it in order to recover the player instead of, as some would have it, prepare the ground to replace him with other alternatives – especially now that Messi has really caught fire as the man of the moment.

This is all grist to the rumour mill, of course, and combined with the simmering transfer buzz has been a feature of all Spanish sports papers and the sports sections of many national papers; both tabloids and broadsheets. Apparent weight gain, supposed late night sorties, mooted unhappiness, absurdly high transfer offers: it was no surprise that ‘The Sun’ would shine on Ronaldinho, especially in the post-Mourinho malaise.

The paper famous for its focus on mammary glands claimed that they were abreast of the inside information and that Ronaldinho was up for a move to Stamford Bridge. Under the probably none-too-accurate quote “Come ‘n get me Roman!” the London daily claimed that “RONALDINHO wants talks over a move to Chelsea after a fall-out with Barcelona boss Frank Rijkaard.”

The story alleged that “Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich is on red-alert to swoop for the frontman with a £50million bid after meeting with De Assis last month. Ronaldinho, 27, is furious he was fronted up by Rijkaard over allegations of boozing less than 48 hours before a game…Assis rapped: “I’m sure a campaign exists against Ronaldinho. I have read many absurd stories about his nightlife.”

Although ‘The Sun’ may not have made a boob with their allegations, (Roberto de) Assis has been quoted in Catalan daily ‘La Vanguardia’ as complaining that “much of the stuff that’s been published in the press has been deliberate…there are personal things involved…[and] they attack us because they want to attack other people.”

The older brother made these declarations during an interview with Catalan Radio station 'RAC1' and included the stressing of the fact that his younger sibling hadn’t refused to play against Sevilla because he was feeling unappreciated – but because he was carrying a calf injury and that itself was a rarity rather than cause for criticism.

“He’s one of the players that is least injured and if he has managed to play so many games it’s because he has taken care of himself. We have a clear conscience because we’ve never done anything to hurt the club’s image”, he underlined, the use of the first person plural stressing the common front he wants to present in view of a perceived attack.

And Assis has been attacked repeatedly, portrayed as a money-obsessed agent who’s willing to turn his brother into a mercenary for fiscal gain. Hence the constant focus on his travels and the consequent transfer rumours that follow. He himself evidently feels used as a proxy to spur a deal that would see Ronaldinho leave Barça.

His declarations may seem a tad paranoid with the use of ‘they’, but for those who accompany and have accompanied the ‘l’entorn’ of FC Barcelona for a while this is nothing stunningly new nor unnecessarily untrue. ‘L’entorn’ is literally ‘the surroundings’ in Catalan, but here means a combination of political manoeuvring in the boardroom, outside influences, the press, agents and various other influences on what happens at a club.

Most Spanish clubs have their ‘entorno’ (Spanish translation) to cope with, and this often translates into a climate that many Coaches and players find frustrating as Schuster pointed out recently in Madrid. It includes the leaking of stories that have only a vague toe-hold in reality but are designed to trigger a reaction by swaying public opinion. But can ‘l’entorn’ be blamed for the current rash of reports?

One of the reasons would be to spur a sale, so who would benefit? If the hyped offers are really what they’re made out to be then both Ronaldinho and his brother would certainly gain, but they’re hardly scraping by on leftovers and charity as it is. Other beneficiaries would include FC Barcelona, emerging stars and the press.

Some have said that the club could find its coffers overflowing with the figures bandied about for a potential Ronaldinho move, but would also lose out in other areas as all that glitters doesn’t boil down to transfer gold. Others point out that emerging stars such as Giovani Dos Santos and Bojan Krkic could gain more space in the starting line-up.

These are all true to some extent or another, but fail to recognise a few basic truths. Johan Cruyff, once a critic of the Barça ‘entorn’ and now seen by some sectors as being an integral part of it, recently highlighted one in today’s column in ‘El Periodico De Catalunya’; ‘Les Claus De Johan Cruyff’ (Johan Cruyff’s Keys).

"The team is always more important than any individual. When choosing a side the best players at that moment must play... It is impossible for one player to play in every single match of the season…It is the law of football and the squad knows that”, explained the Dutchman, and that is an undeniable truth.

Unfortunately modern media football does suffer from many vices and the cult of the personality is one of those vices. We seek heroes to worship and figures who make the difference rather than faceless teams and this is a double-edged weapon as ‘l’entorn’, which, let us not forget, includes fans, is an insatiable being that erects and demolishes individuals for a variety of reasons.

It’s become part of the healthy side of the game to accompany the development of new talents in detail, but the unhealthy flip side is a voyeuristic obsession with kicking them when they’re down. Rather than in some tangled conspiracy theory – which are habitually full of manure – the truth probably lies in simplicity: mountains are being made out of molehills by everybody from The Press to The Fans.

The latest came after the Sevilla match with Rijkaard having to field questions about ‘Messidependencia’ (Messi-dependence); the new theory that Barça is becoming too dependent on Lionel Messi. If we rewind a little we can recall shrill concerns about ‘Ronaldinhodependencia’, so what does the future hold?

Perhaps in a couple of years’ time we will be embroiled in hubbub surrounding an unsettled Messi who is under fire from The Press and a sector of fans unhappy with the then ex-FIFA World Player’s pre-season performances and ‘The Sun’ sports pages will run oversize-font headlines along the lines of “Come ‘n get me Hicksy!”

Until then there are bound to be twists and turns on a more-or-less daily basis, but we all know that it’s a hall of mirrors where the reflections are distorted. We can look this way or that and make suppositions and assumptions about Ronaldinho, what he may do in the future and what’s happening behind the curtain but it’s a view askew.

The distortions originate from a number of places and give a number of angles to view things from, but this is just a sideshow at the funfair of modern football. The main event is the match itself and all the brouhaha surrounding it may be entertaining or annoying but it is very much on the sidelines when the rumour mill stops grinding, the ball starts rolling – and the real adrenalin starts pumping.

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