Before becoming Ballon d’Or in 2006 (after winning a second Liga in a row with Barça and especially a Champions League against Arsenal), Ronaldinho began his career in Europe with a mixed stint at PSG, from 2001 to 2003. Already technically phenomenal, the dribbler from Grêmio Porto Alegre entered the hearts of Red and Blue supporters, but Luis Fernandez sometimes dismissed him for his behavior.
It must be said that “Ronnie” loved to party and he had a blast in the capital’s nightclubs, when smartphones had not yet seen the light of day. In 2017, Selim Benachour, an attacking midfielder trained at PSG, delivered a crazy anecdote about his former Brazilian teammate, in The locker room (on SFR Sport 1, now RMC Sport).
During a green break, the Franco-Tunisian woke up on the day of the match, at 8 a.m., with “25 missed calls” from a “friend who was in the middle of the night in Paris” and who asked him if Ronaldinho was with him. Benachour then says: “my friend said to me: “It’s not possible that he’s with you, I saw him in front of the Barrio Latino at 5 a.m. vomiting in front of the entrance.” I go to Ronnie’s room. I type, I type, I type, no answer. Finally he opens, his hair in all directions, and he says to me: ” What do you want? We talk after “ and he slams the door in my face.”
The two teammates then meet at lunch and the Auriverde responds to the Eagle of Carthage: “I ask him where he was last night, he tells me: “I went out, but didn’t say anything” making his gesture with his fingers when he scored a goal“. A few hours later, the 2002 world champion did “a crazy match” during a 3-1 victory (probably a victory against Troyes, March 16, 2002, with a double from Ronaldinho after a goal from his compatriot José Aloisio). Neither seen nor known.
