Ronaldinho has been called a lot of things during his football career, but he has never been called boring.
The former Barcelona and AC Milan playmaker returned to Camp Nou this month as an ambassador, after a spell in India’s Premier Futsal League with the Goa 5s.
He is still well-loved in Catalonia, and former Barca teammate Andres Iniesta has shared a story from the time the pair spent together which demonstrates the outside-the-box thinking that made ‘Dinho’ unlike any other.
Except the story, which seems almost too good to be true, may be just that.
It relates to the 2005 Clásico at Real Madrid’s Santiago Bernabéu stadium, a game which ended with Ronaldinho being given a standing ovation by the Madrid crowd after a match-winning performance.
Well, more specifically, it relates to what happened the night before the game.
https://twitter.com/iammoallim/status/772381266738053120
But did it happen? Plenty have their doubts, including ESPNFC’s Barcelona correspondent Sam Marsden.
Marsden has confirmed that the story is not from Iniesta’s book, but the source of the tale is unclear.
If Ronaldinho did call his teammates at 3am, which might not be entirely out of character, it has not been committed to print by the club’s longest-serving player.
Ronaldinho story doing the rounds is not in Iniesta's book. Unable to verify it and seems fake, but I may be proved wrong.
— Samuel Marsden (@samuelmarsden) September 5, 2016
And Marsden isn’t the only one to express scepticism about the story, which is yet to be independently verified at the time of writing.
https://twitter.com/tomEurosport/status/772752010286362624
https://twitter.com/andi_thomas/status/772752740002963456
Looks fake to me. Just doesn't feel right.
— Simon Harrison (@simonhfootball) September 5, 2016
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