I come from a family where soccer has always been very present. My uncles, my father and my brother were all players.

- Ronaldinho

Brazil go into every World Cup expecting to win - so when it is in Brazil, it is expected even more. You can't understand what the World Cup means to our country. Not just the fans and players, but everybody in Brazil lets us know that they expect it. Our president, people in politics, all tell us to come back with the World Cup.

- Ronaldinho

When I got to the senior national team, there was another Ronaldo, so they started calling me Ronaldinho because I was younger.

- Ronaldinho

My game is based on improvisation. Often, a forward does not have the time to think too much. You have a second, rarely more, to decide whether to dribble, shoot or pass to the right or left. It is instinct that gives the orders.

- Ronaldinho

Brazil goes into every World Cup expecting to win - so when it is in Brazil it is expected even more. You can't understand what the World Cup means to our country.

- Ronaldinho

The toughest opponents for me are the defenders who are tough in the way they play - where you can't see a way through.

- Ronaldinho

I remember seeing Eric Cantona play for Manchester United. The way he used to control games was special to watch.

- Ronaldinho

Ashley Cole is a fantastic defender. I have seen him keep the best players in the world quiet.

- Ronaldinho

A lot of the moves I make originate from futsal. It's played in a very small space, and the ball control is different in futsal. And to this day my ball control is pretty similar to a futsal player's control.

- Ronaldinho

If you're playing for five hours you don't want to score goals all the time and I loved dribbling. I could score a goal, but I preferred to dribble.

- Ronaldinho

I think each player has an individual style. Each is concerned with giving the best to his team, and I think my best talent is dribbling and setting up goal situations, giving an assist or deceiving one of the other team's players.

- Ronaldinho

When I was 7, I started playing with a club. The only grass on the field was in the corner. There was no grass in the middle! It was just sand.

- Ronaldinho

Paolo Maldini and John Terry are two of the toughest men I have met on the field.

- Ronaldinho

I grew up in a house that was always happy, and my family was always music, music. I started playing percussion very young, because I had some uncles who were musicians and all my aunts were singers.

- Ronaldinho

Football is about joy. It's about dribbling. I favour every idea that makes the game beautiful. Every good idea has to last.

- Ronaldinho

I am ugly, but what I do have is charm.

- Ronaldinho

My only concern is playing. Everything else, my family looks after. In our house, everyone has a job, and my job in our house is to play football.

- Ronaldinho

I am passionate about music - and people think because I go to places where I can enjoy music I have to be partying. It isn't true.

- Ronaldinho

I have never imagined doing anything other than football, but now, thinking about it coldly, if I hadn't been a footballer, I would have been a musician.

- Ronaldinho

I am what I am thanks to my mother, my father, my brother, my sister... because they have given me everything. The education I have is thanks to them.

- Ronaldinho