Ronaldo Nazario is the Brazilian striker fans call R9 and O Fenomeno (the Phenomenon). His career ran from 1993 to 2011, and at his best defenders could not live with him. At 21 he became the youngest Ballon d’Or winner. A tendon in his knee ruptured in November 1999 and again in April 2000. At the 2002 World Cup he scored eight goals, both of Brazil’s goals in the final. It counts as a comeback because he had lost the 1998 final and then lost the best part of three seasons to the knee. After 2002 he played for Real Madrid and Milan, a third rupture ended his career in Europe, and he retired in Brazil in 2011. His story is one of Fizbal’s films on soccer’s greatest players, story by story.
What was so special about Ronaldo Nazario?
Ronaldo Nazario had pace, close control and finishing all at once, the rare striker who could run at defenders with the ball at his feet and finish without fuss. Barcelona signed him from PSV Eindhoven in July 1996 for a world record fee, and he repaid it with 47 goals in 49 games in all competitions in 1996-97. Inter broke the world transfer record again to sign him in 1997, making him the first player since Diego Maradona to break it twice. He won FIFA World Player of the Year in 1996, the youngest winner of the award, and again in 1997. The 1997 Ballon d’Or came at 21, and he is still the youngest player to win it. At the 1998 World Cup he scored four goals and took the Golden Ball, the award for the tournament’s best player. Two world player awards and a Ballon d’Or that early raise the question of where he stands among the greatest, and Fizbal sets out who is the GOAT of soccer era by era.
What happened to Ronaldo Nazario’s knee?
A tendon in Ronaldo Nazario’s knee ruptured twice in five months, in November 1999 and again in April 2000, and the second rupture kept him out for the whole 2000-01 season.
November 1999: the first rupture
On November 21, 1999, Ronaldo Nazario played for Inter against Lecce in Serie A. During the match a tendon in his knee ruptured. The injury needed surgery and kept him out of the team for five months, into the spring of 2000.
April 2000: the same knee, minutes after coming back
Ronaldo Nazario’s return came on April 12, 2000, in Rome, the first leg of the Coppa Italia final against Lazio. He began on the bench and came on in the second half, his first match in nearly five months. Minutes later he went down, and the same tendon ruptured completely. He missed the whole 2000-01 season. Between the Lecce match in November 1999 and the end of the 2000-01 season, those minutes against Lazio were the only football he played.
Ronaldo played again on September 20, 2001, in Trieste, coming on for the last half hour of Inter’s UEFA Cup match against Brasov, a 3-0 Inter win and his first competitive match since the Lazio match 17 months earlier. Muscle injuries then broke up his 2001-02 season. He limped off his first league match back that autumn with a muscle strain, and a thigh strain from late December kept him out until March 2002. He still scored for Inter that season. On March 27, 2002, Ronaldo played for Brazil again in a 1-0 friendly win over Yugoslavia.
Ronaldo Nazario at the 2002 World Cup
Ronaldo Nazario won the 2002 World Cup with Brazil, scoring eight goals and taking the Golden Boot as the tournament’s top scorer, and Brazil took their fifth title. He had been in the 1994 squad without playing, so 2002 was the first World Cup he won on the pitch.
Eight goals and the final in Yokohama
Ronaldo Nazario scored in every match except one, the quarterfinal against England. The final came on June 30, 2002, in Yokohama: Brazil 2-0 Germany, and he scored both goals, the first in the 67th minute and the second in the 79th. The final came two and a half years after the first rupture. The win put Brazil’s fifth title on the list of every World Cup winner since 1930.
Why did Ronaldo Nazario have that haircut in 2002?
Ronaldo Nazario gave the answer himself in 2018: during the tournament the press kept talking about a leg injury he had, so he cut his hair to give them something else to talk about, and it worked. The cut was a shaved head with a small triangle of hair left at the front.
Why is 2002 called Ronaldo Nazario’s comeback?
Ronaldo Nazario’s 2002 is called a comeback because he came back from two knee ruptures and a lost season to win the World Cup, and because the last final he had played before it was the lost 1998 one. The return had begun with those September 2001 minutes in Trieste. The 1998 final was played on July 12, 1998, at the Stade de France, with Brazil as the holders. Ronaldo was taken ill at the team hotel hours before kickoff; he was left off the first team sheet, then put back in the starting lineup. France won 3-0, and Zinedine Zidane scored twice, both headers from corners. That night belongs to Zidane’s story as well, and Fizbal tells it there in full. In Yokohama, four years later, Ronaldo scored the two goals that won the trophy he had missed.
What happened to Ronaldo Nazario after 2002?
Ronaldo Nazario kept scoring for five more years at Real Madrid and Milan, then a third knee rupture ended his career in Europe, and he retired in Brazil in 2011. The rest of the story runs through four dates.
- Real Madrid signed him from Inter in August 2002, after the World Cup, and he won La Liga in 2002-03.
- On June 27, 2006, in Dortmund, his goal against Ghana was his 15th at World Cups, one more than Gerd Muller’s 14, the record at the time. Miroslav Klose passed it in 2014 with 16, and through 2026 the record is Kylian Mbappe’s 22.
- He joined AC Milan in January 2007, and on February 13, 2008, against Livorno, a knee tendon ruptured again, the injury that ended his European career.
- He moved to Corinthians in Brazil, and on February 14, 2011, he announced his retirement, saying his body could not take any more after years of injuries and pain.
How many Ballon d’Ors did Ronaldo Nazario win?
Two. Ronaldo Nazario won them in 1997 at Inter and in 2002 at Real Madrid. He was FIFA World Player of the Year three times, in 1996, 1997 and 2002. You can trace the award through every Ballon d’Or winner in Fizbal’s rundown.
What is Ronaldo Nazario doing now?
As of November 2026, Ronaldo Nazario is retired and has stepped back from owning clubs. He bought 51% of Real Valladolid in September 2018 and agreed to sell it in May 2025, as the club went down from La Liga. He bought control of Cruzeiro’s football club in December 2021 and sold it in April 2024. He stood for president of Brazil’s football federation and withdrew on March 12, 2025, saying 23 of the 27 state federations would not meet him. What lasts is the knee that gave way twice, and the 2002 World Cup he came back to win.
