Bugatti was founded in Molsheim, France, as a manufacturer of high performance automobiles by Ettore Bugatti, an Italian man described as an eccentric genius.

The original company is legendary for producing some of the most exclusive cars in the world as well as some of the fastest. The original Bugatti brand failed with the coming of World War 2, like many high-end marques of the time. The death of Ettore’s son Jean was also a contributory factor. The company struggled financially into the 1960s eventually being purchased for its airplane parts business. Today the name is owned by Volkswagen AG who have revived it as a builder of very limited production sports cars.

[edit] Under Ettore Bugatti

Type 35C (1926), painted in the blue racing colour of France.

Founder Ettore Bugatti was born in Spain, and the automobile company that bears his name was founded in Molsheim a town in the Alsace region of France. The company was known for both the level of detail of its engineering in its automobiles, as well for the artistic way in which the designs were executed, given the artistic nature of Ettore’s family (his father, Carlo Bugatti (1856–1940), was an important Art Nouveau furniture and jewelry designer). The company also enjoyed great success in early Grand Prix motor racing, winning the first ever Monaco Grand Prix. The company’s success culminated with driver Jean-Pierre Wimille winning the 24 hours of Le Mans twice (in 1937 with Robert Benoist and 1939 with Pierre meyron).

[edit] Design

Bugatti’s doors were as much works of art as they were mechanical creations. Engine blocks were hand scraped to ensure that the surfaces were so flat that gaskets were not required for sealing, to engine turned finishes on many of the exposed surfaces of the engine compartment, and safety wires threaded through almost every fastener in intricately laced patterns. Rather than bolt the springs to the axles as most manufacturers did, Bugatti’s axles were forged such that the spring passed though a carefully sized opening in the axle, a much more elegant solution requiring fewer parts. He regarded his arch competitor Bentley’s cars as “the world’s fastest trucks” for focusing on durability. According to Bugatti, weight was the enemy. Bugatti’s inspiring creations attracted many people from other fields of interest, like Arlen Ness who created a motorcycle, called “Smooth-Ness”, with the Bugatti style. He was inspired by the smoothness of a bronze casting of a Bugatti automobile.

Bugatti’s disdain for his customers is as legendary as his devotion to his creations. In one probably apocryphal incident, upon greeting an unhappy customer returning to the factory with “What, you again?”, he replied to the subsequent tale of automotive mechanical woe with “Well, see that it does not happen again!” and strode away. On another occasion, he is said to have replied to a customer dissatisfied with the brakes “I build my cars to run, Monsieur, not to stop!”

[edit] Models

1938 Type 57SC Atlantic from the Ralph Lauren collection

1933 Type 59 Grand Prix racer from the Ralph Lauren collection

Jean Bugatti and his 1932 “Royale“

Only a few examples of each of Ettore Bugatti’s vehicles were ever produced, the most famous being the Type 35 Grand Prex cars, the “Royale“, the Type 57 “Atlantic” and the Type 55 sports car.

Throughout the production run of approximately 7,900 cars (of which about 2,000 still exist), each Bugatti model was designated with the prefix T for Type, which referred to the chassis and drive train.

[edit] Prototypes

• 1900–1901 Type 2
• 1903 Type 5
• 1908 Type 10
• 1925 Type 36
• 1929 Type 40
• 1929 Type 41
• 1929–1930 Type 45/47
• Type 56 (electric car)
• 1939 Type 64 (coupe)
• 1943/1947 Type 73C

[edit] Racing cars

• 1910–1914 Type 13/Type 15/17/22
• 1922–1926 Type 29
• 1923 Type 32 “Tank”
• 1924–1930 Type 35/35A/35B/35T/35C/37/39
• 1927–1930 Type 52 (electric racer for children)
• 1936–1939 Type 57G “Tank”
• 1937–1939 Type 50B
• 1931–1936 Type 53
• 1931–1936 Type 51/51A/54GP/59
• 1955–1956 Type 251

[edit] Road cars

• 1910 Bugatti Type 13^[1]
• 1912–1914 Type 18 “Garros”
• 1913–1914 Type 23/Brescia Tourer (roadster)
• 1922–1934 Type 30/38/40/43/44/49 (touring car)
• 1927–1933 Type 41 “Royale” (limousine)
• 1929–1939 Type 46/50/50T (touring car)
• 1932–1935 Type 55 (roadster)
• 1934–1940 Type 57/57S/Type 57SC (touring car)
• 1951–1956 Type 101 (coupe)
• 1957–1962 Type 252 (2-seater sports convertible)

During the war Bugatti worked at Levallois on several new projects, including the Type 73 road car, Type 73C single seater racing car (5 built), and the Type 75. After World War II, a 375 cc supercharged car was canceled when Ettore died.

[edit] Racing success

Bugatti cars were extremely successful in racing, with many thousands of victories in just a few decades. The little Bugatti Type 10 swept the top four positions at its first race. The 1924 Bugatti Type 35 is probably the most successful racing car of all time with over 2,000 wins. Bugattis swept to victory in the Targa Florio for five years straight from 1925 through 1929. Louis Chiron held the most podiums in Bugatti cars, and the 21st century Bugatti company remembered him with a concept car named in his honour. But it was the final racing success at Le Mans that is most remembered—Jean-Pierre Wimille and Pierre Veyron won the 1939 race with just one car and meagre resources.

[edit] Bugatti in Formula One

(key)

* The World Constructors’ Championship was not awarded before 1958.

[edit] The end

Ettore Bugatti also designed a successful motorised railcar, the Autorail, and an airplane, which never flew. His son, Jean Bugatti, was killed on August 11, 1939 at the age of 30, while testing a Type 57 tank-bodied race car near the Molsheim factory. Subsequently the company’s fortunes began to decline. World War II ruined the factory in Molsheim, and the company lost control of the property. During the war, Bugatti planned a new factory at Levallois in Paris and designed a series of new cars. Ettore Bugatti died on August 21, 1947.

The company attempted a comeback under Roland Bugatti in the mid-1950s with the mid-engined Type 251 race car. Designed with help from famed Alfa Romeo, Ferrari, and Maserati designer Gioacchino Colombo, the car failed to perform to expectations and the company’s attempts at automobile production were halted.

In the 1960s, Virgil Exner designed a Bugatti as part of his “Revival Cars” project. A show version of this car was actually built by Ghia using the last Bugatti Type 101 chassis and was shown at the 1965 Turin Motor Show. Finance was not forthcoming and Exner then turned his attention to a revival of Stutz.

Bugatti continued producing airplane parts and was sold to Hispano-Suiza (another auto maker turned aircraft supplier) in 1963. Snecma took over in 1968, later acquiring Messier. The two were merged into Messier-Bugatti in 1977.

[edit] Bugatti Automobili SpA

Bugatti EB110 (1996).

Italian entrepreneur Romano Artioli acquired the famous Bugatti name in 1987 and established Bugatti Automobili SpA. The new company built a factory designed by the architect Giampaolo Benedini in Campogalliano, Italy, a town near Modena, home to other performance-car manufacturers De Tomaso, Ferrari, Pagani and Maserati.

By 1989, the plans for the new Bugatti-revival were presented by Paolo Stanzani and Marcello Gandini, famous designers of the Lamborghini Miura and Countach. The first completed car was labelled the Bugatti EB110 GT, advertised as the most technically advanced sports car ever produced.

From 1992 through 1994, famed racing car designer, Mauro Forghieri, was technical director.

On August 27, 1993, through his holding company, ACBN Holdings S.A. of Luxembourg, Romano Artioli purchased the Lotus car company from General Motors. The acquisition brought together two of the greatest historical names in automotive racing and plans were made for listing the company’s shares on international stock exchanges. Bugatti also presented in 1993 the prototype of a large sedan called the EB 112.

By the time the EB110 came to market the North American and European economies were in recession and operations ceased in September 1995. A model specific to the United States market called the “Bugatti America” was in the preparatory stages when the company closed. Bugatti’s liquidators sold Lotus to Proton of Malaysia.

In 1997, German manufacturer Dauer Racing bought the EB110 license and remaining parts stock to Bugatti in order to produce five more EB110 SS units, although they were greatly refined by Dauer. The factory was later sold to a furniture making company, which also collapsed before they were able to move in. The factory still remains unoccupied to this day.

Perhaps the most famous Bugatti EB110 owner is racing driver Michael Schumacher, 7 times Formula One world champion. Despite later racing for Ferrari, he still retained the EB110 he acquired while racing for the Benetton team. In 2003 Schumacher sold the car -repaired after a severe crash in 1994, the same year of purchase- to Modena Motorsport, a Ferrari service and race preparation garage in Germany.

[edit] Bugatti Automobiles SAS

Veyron 16.4.

See also the main article, Bugatti Automobiles SAS

Volkswagen AG purchased the rights to produce cars under the Bugatti marque in 1998. They commissioned ItalDesign to produce the Bugatti EB118 concept, a touring sedan which featured a 555 hp DIN (408 kW) output and the first W-configuration 18-cylinder engine in any passenger vehicle, at the Paris Auto Show.

In 1999 the Bugatti EB 218 concept was introduced at the Geneva Auto Show; later that year the Bugatti 18/3 Chiron was introduced at the IAA in Frankfurt. At the Tokyo Motor Show the EB 218 reappeared and the Bugatti EB 16.4 Veyron was presented as the first incarnation of what was to be a production road car.

[edit] The Veyron 16.4

Main article: Bugatti Veyron

In 2000 Volkswagen AG founded Bugatti Automobiles SAS and introduced the EB 16/4 Veyron concept, a 16-cylinder quadruple turbo charged car with 1001 hp DIN (736 kW), 0-100 km/h ( 0-62 mph) in 2.5 sec. and goes 407 km/h (253 mph) , at the Paris, Geneva and Detroit auto shows, the cost of which to create is estimated at around £6m per car^{[citation needed]}. Development continued throughout 2004 and the EB 16/4 Veyron was promoted to “advanced concept” status. In July 2005 Bugatti Automobiles SAS announced that the car would officially be called the Bugatti Veyron 16.4. It was said that the car—built in a brand new Bugatti factory in Dorlisheim 48°31′32″N 07°30′01″E / 48.52556, 7.50028—would be delivered to clients in October 2005. In fact the Veyron finally entered production in late 2005, the first cars being delivered in early 2006. Minimum speed claims have been met in several high speed tests where the car slightly exceeded its target, reaching 408.47 km/h (254 mph)^[2]. According to Car and Driver, the Veyron’s fuel consumption at 253 mph was 3.0 mpg (78L/100km). At full throttle, its 100 L (26 US gal/22 imp gal) fuel tank would empty in just 12 minutes 46 seconds. This is a safety measure studied by the engineers because after 15 straight minutes at 253 mph the tires would melt.

Independent press tests have reported many failures (three out of five cars notionally available for testing in November 2005 were out of service), but the Veyron prototypes were put through the same grueling regimen as other Volkswagen group models, with each pre-production car logging over 50,000 miles. This car comes in many different color combinations, including red and black, blue and dark blue, grey and black, and so on. Bugatti Veyron Fbg par Hermès is the latest limited edition version of the Bugatti Veyron 16.4. It is a limited edition model that costs $2.3 million (not including tax)and has an interior designed and crafted by the French leather and silk specialist, Hermès. The Fbg in the limited edition Veyron’s name stands for, Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré; the address of the headquarters for Hermès. The Bugatti Veyron Fbg par Hermès has no mechanical alterations and is still essentially the Bugatti Veyron 16.4; the only alterations are that of the interior-balls calfskin composes the new interior.

[edit] “Project Lydia”

It is rumored that Bugatti is currently working on Project Lydia. It will likely use Veyron’s 8-L W16 1175 horsepower engine. Bugatti is aiming for a Nürburgring lap time of 6 minutes and 40 seconds. It is projected to cost 2.5 million Euros.^[3]

Space is the extent within which matter is physically extended and objects and events have positions relative to one another^[1]. Physical space is often conceived in three linear dimensions, although modern physicists usually consider it, with time, to be part of the boundless four-dimensional continuum known as spacetime. In mathematics spaces with different numbers of dimensions and with different underlying structures can be examined. The concept of space is considered to be of fundamental importance to an understanding of the universe although disagreement continues between philosophers over whether it is itself an entity, a relationship between entities, or part of a conceptual framework.

Many of the philosophical questions arose in the 17th century, during the early development of classical mechanics. In Isaac Newton’s view, space was absolute – in the sense that it existed permanently and independently of whether there were any matter in the space.^[2] Other natural philosophers, notably Gottfried Leibniz, thought instead that space was a collection of relations between objects, given by their distance and direction from one another. In the 18th century, Immanuel Kant described space and time as elements of a systematic framework which humans use to structure their experience.

In the 19th and 20th centuries mathematicians began to examine non-Euclidean geometries, in which space can be said to be curved, rather than flat. According to Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity, space around gravitational fields deviates from Euclidean space.^[3] Experimental tests of general relativity have confirmed that non-Euclidean space provides a better model for explaining the existing laws of mechanics and optics.

Philosophy of space

In the early 11th century, the Islamic philosopher and physicist, Ibn al-Haytham (also known as Alhacen or Alhazen), discussed space perception and its epistemological implications in his Book of Optics (1021). His experimental proof of the intromission model of vision led to changes in the way the visual perception of space was understood, contrary to the previous emission theory of vision supported by Euclid and Ptolemy. In “tying the visual perception of space to prior bodily experience, Alhacen unequivocally rejected the intuitiveness of spatial perception and, therefore, the autonomy of vision. Without tangible notions of distance and size for correlation, sight can tell us next to nothing about such things.”^[4]

Leibniz and Newton

Gottfried Leibniz

In the seventeenth century, the philosophy of space and time emerged as a central issue in epistemology and metaphysics. At its heart, Gottfried Leibniz, the German philosopher-mathematician, and Isaac Newton, the English physicist-mathematician, set out two opposing theories of what space is. Rather than being an entity which independently exists over and above other matter, Leibniz held that space is no more than the collection of spatial relations between objects in the world: “space is that which results from places taken together”^[5]. Unoccupied regions are those which could have objects in them and thus spatial relations with other places. For Leibniz, then, space was an idealised abstraction from the relations between individual entities or their possible locations and therefore could not be continuous but must be discrete^[6]. Space could be thought of in a similar way to the relations between family members. Although people in the family are related to one another, the relations do not exist independently of the people^[7]. Leibniz argued that space could not exist independently of objects in the world because that would imply that there would be a difference between two universes exactly alike except for the location of the material world in each universe. But since there would be no observational way of telling these universes apart then, according to the identity of indiscernibles, there would be no real difference between them. According to the principle of sufficient reason, any theory of space which implied that there could be these two possible universes, must therefore be wrong^[8].

Isaac Newton

Newton took space to be more than relations between material objects and based his position on observation and experimentation. For a relationist there can be no real difference between inertial motion, in which the object travels with constant velocity, and non-inertial motion, in which the velocity changes with time, since all spatial measurements are relative to other objects and their motions. But Newton argued that since non-inertial motion generates forces, it must be absolute^[9]. He used the example of water in a spinning bucket to demonstrate his argument. Water in a bucket is hung from a rope and set to spin, starts with a flat surface. After a while, as the bucket continues to spin, the surface of the water becomes concave. If the bucket’s spinning is stopped then the surface of the water remains concave as it continues to spin. The concave surface is therefore apparently not the result of relative motion between the bucket and the water^[10]. Instead, Newton argued, it must be a result of non-inertial motion relative to space itself. For several centuries the bucket argument was decisive in showing that space must exist independently of matter.

Kant

Immanuel Kant

In the eighteenth century the German philosopher Immanuel Kant developed a theory of knowledge in which knowledge about space can be both a priori and synthetic^[11]. According to Kant, knowledge about space is synthetic, in that statements about space are not simply true by virtue of the meaning of the words in the statement. In his work, Kant rejected the view that space must be either a substance or relation. Instead he came to the conclusion that space and time are not discovered by humans to be objective features of the world, but are part of an unavoidable systematic framework for organizing our experiences.^[12]

Non-Euclidean geometry

Spherical geometry is similar to elliptical geometry. On the surface of a sphere there are no parallel lines.

Euclid’s Elements contained five postulates which form the basis for Euclidean geometry. One of these, the parallel postulate has been the subject of debate among mathematicians for many centuries. It states that on any plane on which there is a straight line L₁ and a point P not on L₁, there is only one straight line L₂ on the plane which passes through the point P and is parallel to the straight line L₁. Until the 19th century, few doubted the truth of the postulate; instead debate centered over whether it was necessary as an axiom, or whether it was a theory which could be derived from the other axioms^[13]. Around 1830 though, the Hungarian János Bolyai and the Russian Nikolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky separately published treatises on a type of geometry which does not include the parallel postulate, called hyperbolic geometry. In this geometry, there are an infinite number of parallel lines which pass through the point P. Consequently the sum of angles in a triangle is less than 180^o and the ratio of a circle‘s circumference to its diameter is greater than pi. In the 1850s, Bernhard Riemann developed an equivalent theory of elliptical geometry, in which there are no parallel lines which pass through P. In this geometry, triangles have more than 180^o and circles have a ratio of circumference to diameter which is less than pi.

Gauss and Poincaré

Carl Friedrich Gauss

Although there was a prevailing Kantian consensus at the time, once non-Euclidean geometries had been formalised, some began to wonder whether or not physical space is curved. Carl Friedrich Gauss, the German mathematician, was the first to consider an empirical investigation of the geometrical structure of space. He thought of making a test of the sum of the angles of an enormous stellar triangle and there are reports he actually carried out a test, on a small scale, by triangulating mountain tops in Germany^[14].

Henri Poincaré

Henri Poincaré, a French mathematician and physicist of the late 19th century introduced an important insight which attempted to demonstrate the futility of any attempt to discover by experiment which geometry applies to space^[15]. He considered the predicament which would face scientists if they were confined to the surface of an imaginary large sphere with particular properties, known as a sphere-world. In this world, the temperature is taken to vary in such a way that all objects expand and contract in similar proportions in different places on the sphere. With a suitable falloff in temperature, if the scientists try to use measuring rods to determine the sum of the angles in a triangle, they can be deceived into thinking that they inhabit a plane, rather than a spherical surface^[16]. In fact, the scientists cannot in principle determine whether they inhabit a plane or sphere and, Poincaré argued, the same is true for the debate over whether real space is Euclidean or not. For him, it was a matter of convention which geometry was used to describe space^[17]. Since Euclidean geometry is simpler than non-Euclidean geometry, he assumed the former would always be used to describe the ‘true’ geometry of the world^[18].

Einstein

Albert Einstein

In 1905, Albert Einstein published a paper on a special theory of relativity, in which he proposed that space and time be combined into a single construct known as spacetime. In this theory, the speed of light in a vacuum is the same for all observers – which has the result that two events that appear simultaneous to one particular observer will not be simultaneous to another observer if the observers are moving with respect to one another. Moreover, an observer will measure a moving clock to tick more slowly than one which is stationary with respect to them; and objects are measured to be shortened in the direction that they are moving with respect to the observer.

Over the following ten years Einstein worked on a general theory of relativity, which is a theory of how gravity interacts with spacetime. Instead of viewing gravity as a force field acting in spacetime, Einstein suggested that it modifies the geometric structure of spacetime itself^[19]. According to the general theory, time goes more slowly at places with lower gravitational potentials and rays of light bend in the presence of a gravitational field. Scientists have studied the behaviour of binary pulsars, confirming the predictions of Einstein’s theories and Non-Euclidean geometry is usually used to describe spacetime.

Mathematics

In modern mathematics, spaces are frequently described as different types of manifolds which are spaces that locally approximate to Euclidean space and where the properties are defined largely on local connectedness of points that lie on the manifold.

Physics

Classical mechanics

Space is one of the few fundamental quantities in physics, meaning that it cannot be defined via other quantities because nothing more fundamental is known at the present. On the other hand, it can be related to other fundamental quantities. Thus, similar to other fundamental quantities (like time and mass), space can be explored via measurement and experiment.

Astronomy

Main article: Astronomy

Astronomy is the science involved with the observation, explanation and measuring of objects in outer space.

Relativity

Main article: Theory of relativity

Before Einstein‘s work on relativistic physics, time and space were viewed as independent dimensions. Einstein’s discoveries have shown that due to relativity of motion our space and time can be mathematically combined into one object — spacetime. It turns out that distances in space or in time separately are not invariant with respect to Lorentz coordinate transformations, but distances in Minkowski space-time along space-time intervals are — which justifies the name.

In addition, time and space dimensions should not be viewed as exactly equivalent in Minkowski space-time. One can freely move in space but not in time. Thus, time and space coordinates are treated differently both in special relativity (where time is sometimes considered an imaginary coordinate) and in general relativity (where different signs are assigned to time and space components of spacetime metric).

Furthermore, from Einstein’s general theory of relativity, it has been shown that space-time is geometrically distorted- curved -near to gravitationally significant masses.^[20]

Experiments are ongoing to attempt to directly measure gravitational waves. This is essentially solutions to the equations of general relativity which describe moving ripples of spacetime. Indirect evidence for this has been found in the motions of the Hulse-Taylor binary system.

Cosmology

Main article: Shape of the universe

Relativity theory lead to the cosmological question of what shape the universe is, and where space came from. It appears that space was created in the Big Bang and has been expanding ever since. The overall shape of space is not known, but space is known to be expanding very rapidly which is evident due to the Hubble expansion.

Spatial measurement

Main article: Measurement

The measurement of physical space has long been important. Although earlier societies had developed measuring systems, the International System of Units, (SI), is now the most common system of units used in the measuring of space, and is almost universally used within science.

Currently, the standard space interval, called a standard meter or simply meter, is defined as the distance traveled by light in a vacuum during a time interval of exactly 1/299,792,458 of a second. This definition coupled with present definition of the second is based on the special theory of relativity, that our space-time is a Minkowski space.^{[citation needed]}

Geography

Geography is the branch of science concerned with identifying and describing the Earth, utilizing spatial awareness to try and understand why things exist in specific locations. Cartography is the mapping of spaces to allow better navigation, for visualization purposes and to act as a locational device. Geostatistics apply statistical concepts to collected spatial data in order to create an estimate for unobserved phenomena.

Geographical space is often considered as land, and can have a relation to ownership usage (in which space is seen as property or territory). While some cultures assert the rights of the individual in terms of ownership, other cultures will identify with a communal approach to land ownership, while still other cultures such as Australian Aboriginals, rather than asserting ownership rights to land, invert the relationship and consider that they are in fact owned by the land. Spatial planning is a method of regulating the use of space at land-level, with decisions made at regional, national and international levels. Space can also impact on human and cultural behavior, being an important factor in architecture, where it will impact on the design of buildings and structures, and on farming.

Ownership of space is not restricted to land. Ownership of airspace and of waters is decided internationally. Other forms of ownership have been recently asserted to other spaces — for example to the radio bands of the electromagnetic spectrum or to cyberspace.

Public space is a term used to define areas of land as collectively owned by the community, and managed in their name by delegated bodies; such spaces are open to all. While private property is the land culturally owned by an individual or company, for their own use and pleasure.

Abstract space is a term used in geography to refer to a hypothetical space characterized by complete homogeneity. When modeling activity or behavior, it is a conceptual tool used to limit extraneous variables such as terrain.

In psychology

The way in which space is perceived is an area which psychologists first began to study in the middle of the 19th century, and it is now thought by those concerned with such studies to be a distinct branch within psychology. Psychologists analyzing the perception of space are concerned with how recognition of an object’s physical appearance or its interactions are perceived.

Other, more specialized topics studied include amodal perception and object permanence. The perception of surroundings is important due to its necessary relevance to survival, especially with regards to hunting and self preservation as well as simply one’s idea of personal space.

Several space-related phobias have been identified, including agoraphobia (the fear of open spaces), astrophobia (the fear of celestial space), claustrophobia (the fear of enclosed spaces), and cenophobia (the fear of empty spaces).

Ronaldo de Assis Moreira (born March 21, 1980 in Porto Alegre), commonly known as Ronaldinho or Ronaldinho Gaúcho,^[2] is a Brazilian footballer who plays for Italian Serie A club A.C. Milan and the Brazil national team.

Ronaldinho, meaning “little Ronaldo,” is better known in Brazil by the nickname Ronaldinho Gaúcho, in order to distinguish him from Ronaldo, who was already called “Ronaldinho” in Brazil. Ronaldo simply went by his first name upon his move to Europe, thereby allowing Ronaldinho to drop the “Gaúcho” and remain simply as Ronaldinho.

He has played for Grêmio, Paris Saint-Germain, and FC Barcelona, with whom he won his first Champions League in 2006. Ronaldinho is a two-time winner of the FIFA World Player of the Year, European Footballer of the Year and FIFPro World Player of the Year awards.^[3] He became a Spanish citizen in January 2007.^[4]

Biography and personal life

Ronaldo de Assis Moreira was born in the Rio Grande do Sul capital of Porto Alegre. His mother, Miguelina, is a former salesperson who studied to become a nurse. His father, João, was a shipyard worker and footballer for local club Esporte Clube Cruzeiro (not to be confused with Cruzeiro EC),^[5] and suffered a fatal heart attack when Ronaldo was eight. After Ronaldo’s older brother, Roberto, signed with Grêmio, the family moved to a more affluent home in Porto Alegre, which was a gift from Grêmio to convince Roberto to stay at the club. Roberto’s career was ultimately cut short by injury.

Ronaldo’s football skills began to blossom at an early age, and he was first given the nickname Ronaldinho because he was often the youngest and the smallest player in youth club matches.^[6] He developed an interest in futsal and beach football, which later expanded to organized football, and his first brush with the media came at the age of thirteen, when he scored all 23 goals in a 23-0 victory against a local team.^[7] Ronaldinho was identified as a rising star at the Egypt 1997 under-17 world championship, in which he scored two goals on penalty kicks.^[8][9]

Today Roberto acts as Ronaldinho’s manager, while his sister, Deisi, works as his press coordinator.^[10][11] Ronaldinho became a father for the first time on February 25, 2005, after Brazilian dancer Janaína Mendes gave birth to their son, who was named João after Ronaldinho’s father.^[12]

Club career

Early career

Ronaldinho’s career began with the Grêmio youth squad under head coach Celso Roth, who only played him due to immense pressure from team supporters. He made his senior side debut during the 1998 Copa Libertadores.^[13] In 2001, Arsenal F.C. expressed interest in signing Ronaldinho, but the move collapsed after he could not obtain a work permit, because he was a non-EU player who had not played enough international matches.^[14] He considered playing on loan with Scottish Premier League side St Mirren F.C., which never happened due to his involvement in a fake passport scandal in Brazil.^[15] Ronaldinho ultimately signed a five-year contract with Paris Saint-Germain FC.

During the 2001-02 season, PSG manager Luis Fernandez claimed that Ronaldinho was too focused on the Parisian nightlife rather than football, and complained that his holidays in Brazil never ended at the scheduled times.^[13] In 2003, less than two years into his PSG stint, Ronaldinho made it clear he wanted to leave after PSG failed to qualify for any European competition.

FC Barcelona

Ronaldinho in 2004.

On July 19, 2003, FC Barcelona acquired Ronaldinho for £21 million.^[16] Originally, Barcelona president Joan Laporta had promised to bring David Beckham to the club, but following his transfer to Real Madrid, Barcelona entered the running for Ronaldinho and outbid Manchester United for his signature.

He made his team debut in a friendly against A.C. Milan at RFK Stadium in Washington, D.C, scoring one goal in a 2-0 victory. After suffering from injury during the first half of the campaign, he returned and helped lead Barcelona to a second-place league finish.

Ronaldinho won his first league title in 2004-05, and was named FIFA World Player of the Year on December 20, 2004. On March 8, 2005, Barcelona were eliminated from the Champions League by Chelsea F.C in the first knockout round, with Ronaldinho scoring both goals in a 4-2 loss.^[17]

With Ronaldinho’s contract expiring in 2008, he was offered an extension until 2014 that would have net him £85 million over nine years,^[18] but he turned it down. In September 2005, he signed a two-year extension that contained a minimum-fee release clause that allowed him to leave should a club make an offer to Barcelona of at least £85 million for him.^[19]

Ronaldinho with Frank Rijkaard at NASA‘s Johnson Space Center.

By the end of the 2004-05 season, Ronaldinho had started to accumulate a host of personal awards. He won the inaugural FIFPro World Player of the Year in September 2005, in addition to being included in the FIFPro World XI. He was named as both the European Footballer of the Year . He was again named FIFA World Player of the Year with 956 points, more than triple the amount (306) of runner-up Frank Lampard.

On November 19, 2005, Ronaldinho scored twice as Barcelona defeated Real Madrid 3-0 on the road in the first leg of the El Clásico. After he sealed the match with his second goal, he received a standing ovation from the Madrid fans. He was chosen for the UEFA Team of 2005 for the third consecutive year in January 2006.

Barcelona eliminated SL Benfica in the ’05-06 CL quarterfinals with a 2-0 home victory, with Ronaldinho scoring one of the goals after missing an early penalty kick. After a 1-0 semifinal aggregate win over AC Milan, in which Ronaldinho assisted the series’ only goal by Ludovic Giuly, Barcelona progressed to the CL final, which they won on May 17, 2006 with a 2-1 defeat of Arsenal F.C. despite Ronaldinho being kept in check for the match. Two weeks earlier, Barcelona had clinched their second straight La Liga title with a 1-0 win over Celta Vigo, giving Ronaldinho his first career double. He finished the season with a career-best twenty-six goals in all competitions, and was named the 2005-06 Champions League Player of the Year.

On November 25, 2006, Ronaldinho scored his fiftieth career league goal against Villarreal CF, then later scored a second time with an overhead bicycle kick. He later said to reporters that the latter was a goal he had dreamed of scoring since he was a boy.^[20] He scored once and set up two others in Barcelona’s 4-0 Club World Cup win over Mexico’s Club América on December 14, but Barcelona were defeated 1-0 by Brazilian club Internacional in the final.^[21] Ronaldinho was nonetheless the recipient of the Bronze Ball Award for the competition.

The next day, Ronaldinho finished third in the running for the 2006 FIFA World Player of the Year, behind World Cup-winning captain Fabio Cannavaro and Zinedine Zidane.^[22] Ronaldinho was named among the UEFA Team of the Year for the third straight time in January 2007, receiving the highest number of votes in over 290,000 nominations.^[23] He was forced to miss a charity match on March 13 due to an injury he had picked up several days earlier in Barcelona’s 3-3 El Clásico draw with Real Madrid.^[24][25]

He played his 200th career match for Barcelona in a league match against Osasuna on February 3, 2008. However, his 2007-08 campaign as a whole was plagued by injuries, and a muscle tear in his right leg on April 3 prematurely ended his season.^[26] On May 19, Laporta stated that Ronaldinho needed a “new challenge,” claiming that he needed a new club if he were to revive his career.^[27] Manchester City F.C. owner Thaksin Shinawatra confirmed on June 6 that he was interested in acquiring him.^[28]

Ronaldinho and Barcelona teammate Lionel Messi each captained a team of international stars in an anti-racism exhibition match in Venezuela on June 28, which ended in a 7-7 draw. Ronaldinho finished with a pair of goals and two assists in what would be his last match as a Barcelona player.^[29]

Ronaldinho playing for A.C. Milan

A.C. Milan

Ronaldinho turned down a £25.5 Million offer from Manchester City^[30] to join Italian giants A.C. Milan on a three-year contract, after he was purchased from Barcelona for €21 million.^[31] With the number 10 already occupied by teammate Clarence Seedorf, he selected 80 as his jersey number, because 1980 was his birth year.^[32]

Ronaldinho scored his first goal in the major derby game against Inter Milan on September 28th, 2008, in which proved to be the winning goal where Milan won 1-0. ^[33]

International career

Ronaldinho is one of few Brazilian players to have played at every international age level. He was part of the first Brazilian team to win the FIFA U-17 World Championship in 1997, in which his first goal was a penalty against Austria in the first group match, which Brazil won 7-0. Ronaldinho finished with two goals and was awarded the Bronze Ball award as Brazil scored a total of twenty-one goals while only conceding two.

1999 was a busy year for Ronaldinho in terms of international play. He took part in the 1999 FIFA World Youth Championship, scoring his first goal in Brazil’s last group match. In the round of sixteen, he scored two first-half goals in a 4-0 win over Croatia, and finished with three goals as Brazil were eliminated by Uruguay in the quarterfinals. On June 26, three days before the start of the 1999 Copa América, he earned his first cap for Brazil in a 3-0 win over Latvia, and he scored one goal during Brazil’s victorious Copa América campaign. One week after the conclusion of the Copa América, he was called up for the 1999 Confederations Cup, in which he scored in every match, including a hat-trick in an 8-2 semifinal rout of Saudi Arabia. Ronaldinho missed the final, a 4-3 loss to Mexico, due to injury.

Ronaldinho with Brazilian President Lula

Ronaldinho participated in his first World Cup in 2002, as part of a formidable offensive unit with Ronaldo and Rivaldo, scoring two goals. One came in the quarterfinal against England on June 21, before he was sent off for a foul on England defender Danny Mills. He was suspended for the semifinal, but returned to Brazil’s starting lineup for the 2-0 victory over Germany in the final.

He captained Brazil to its second Confederations Cup title in 2005, and was named Man of the Match in a 4-1 victory over archrivals Argentina in the final on June 29.

2006 World Cup

Ronaldinho started in all five of Brazil’s 2006 World Cup finals matches as part of a much-publicized “magic quartet” of offensive players, alongside Adriano, Robinho, and Kaká. However, the foursome finished with only three goals as Brazil disappointed as a whole in the tournament. Ronaldinho turned in his worst collective performance in his international career, going scoreless with only one assist, which was for Gilberto‘s goal in a 4-1 group stage victory over Japan. He was a non-factor as Brazil were eliminated by France 1-0 in the quarterfinal, in which Brazil had only one shot on goal for the entire match.^[34]

The team was harshly criticized by Brazilian fans and media following their return home. On July 3, two days after Brazil’s elimination, vandals immolated and destroyed a 7.5-meter (23-foot) tall fiberglass and resin statue of Ronaldinho in Chapecó.^[35] The statue had been erected in 2004 to celebrate his first FIFA World Player of the Year award. That same day, Ronaldinho, joined by Adriano, returned to Barcelona and held a party at his home, which was continued into the early morning hours at a nightclub. This aggravated the hard feelings of many Brazilian fans, who believed that they were betrayed by the lack of effort from the squad.^[36]

Post-World Cup

Dinho has been fairly inactive under new coach Dunga, earning three caps in a six-month span following the World Cup. On March 24, 2007, he started for Brazil for the first time since September 2006 and netted twice in a 4-0 win over Chile, which marked his first goal since the 2005 Confederations Cup final and thus ended a scoreless streak that lasted nearly two years.^[37] He was not called up for the 2007 Copa América, which was won by Brazil, and on October 18, he was controversially benched by Barcelona after he was late returning to Spain following Brazil’s 5-0 friendly win over Ecuador. He and several Brazil players celebrated the win by partying through the night at a posh Rio de Janeiro nightclub. Ronaldinho left at 11 a.m. the next morning, allegedly in the trunk of a car in order to avoid the media.^[38]

Ronaldinho was named to Brazil’s 2008 Summer Olympics squad on July 7, 2008.^[39] Barcelona initially blocked the move because of his then-upcoming Champions League commitments with the club. The decision was later nullified following Ronaldinho’s transfer to Milan, who in turn permitted him to make the trip to Beijing.^[40] Ronaldinho scored his only two goals in a decisive 5-0 defeat of New Zealand. Brazil were eliminated in the semifinals by Argentina after a 3-0 loss.

Statistics

FC Barcelona:
First match: FC Barcelona – Athletic Bilbao 1-0 (30-08-2003)
Last match: FC Barcelona – Villarreal CF 2-3 (09-03-2008)

207 matches – 94 goals(La Liga: 145/70, European Cups: 42/18 (UEFA Cup:7/4, UEFA Champions League:35/14), Copa del Rey: 13/4, Supercopa de España: 4/1, UEFA Super Cup: 1/0, FIFA Club World Cup: 2/1

National team:
First cap: Brazil – Latvia 3 – 0 (26.06.1999)
Last cap: Brazil – Singapore 3 – 0 (28.07.2008)

83 caps – 33 goals

Club career statistics

As of July 16, 2008^[41]

Honours