Ronaldinho, who’s here for Premier Futsal, looks and behaves like a naive, adorable teen. With his translator in tow, he was all boyish charm, and toothy grin, as he spoke to the press here on Sunday.
He said that he’s happy to be a part of Premier Futsal since he has his “roots in futsal” and gets to “promote the sport in India with the other football legends.”
When asked if he once had really scored all of his team’s 23 goals in a futsal game as a teen, he confirmed it with pleasant amusement. “Yes, it’s true. But the team we played against wasn’t that good.”
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From his observation of a few Indian football and futsal players he has come across, he said that the country has “good potential” and deemed the league “a good platform that’ll motivate the native players to do better as they get to play with some world class futsal players and football icons.”
On whether the Brazil football team is suffering from a lack of a striker of Ronaldo’s calibre, he said, “I don’t think so. Brazil has always done well and will continue to do so. After Ronaldo, we had Adriano. Nowadays, I think they are out of luck mostly.”
He reckoned that Messi has to be for Neymar, what he was to the Argentine’s younger self, at Barcelona, and spoke on his retirement.
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“It’s important that the experienced share their thoughts and guide the young players. Messi and I shared that kind of a rapport, and I think it’s the same between him and Neymar now. I believe, it’s been helping Neymar do well.”
“Messi retiring from football without any major trophy with his National team isn’t going to change the fact that he’s one of the best players in the world. For me, he isn’t missing out on anything. Football, and its fans are missing out on him.”