Ronaldinho Gaúcho: The Alchemy of Football as Visual Art

This paper examines Ronaldinho Gaúcho’s career as a paradigmatic case of football transcending athletic competition to become visual art. Drawing on testimony from contemporaries—most notably Zinedine Zidane—historical match data, and concepts from aesthetics and performance theory, we argue that Ronaldinho operated through three core pillars: creativity, embodied joy, and radical unpredictability. The El Clásico—in which Ronaldinho scored twice at the Santiago Bernabéu Stadium and received a standing ovation from Real Madrid CF supporters, becoming only the second FC Barcelona player ever to do so—serves as the central empirical anchor. We propose the concept of the mutual admiration phenomenon to describe moments in which rival spectators collectively suspend tribalism in favour of aesthetic appreciation. Ultimately, we conclude that Ronaldinho’s legacy redefines excellence in sport as an inherently aesthetic, rather than merely functional, achievement.