The Brazilian superstar shone in a classic match between Barcelona and Real Madrid, which the culés won 3-0, and managed to receive applause at the Santiago Bernabéu.
There are entire books dedicated to explaining the rivalry between Real Madrid and Barcelona. There is, according to myths, even a conflict within the Spanish royalty for having a culé infiltrated. There is an investigation that hurts the soul, by journalist Juan Carlos Pasamontes, where it is revealed that Carlos Padrós Rubió, a Catalan, founded the whites. There is a game so euphoric, on November 1st, after the war, that ended 5-5 and resulted in the dismissal of both club presidents and the arrival of Santiago Bernabéu as president of Real Madrid. Iker Casillas and Xavi Hernández, leaders of the Spain team that won the 2010 World Cup and the 2008 and 2012 Euro Cups, stopped talking to each other during the heated matches between Mourinho and Guardiola. In the bars of the capital and Catalonia, when the other team plays, people gather to wish them bad luck and celebrate if the miracle happens and they lose. All of that happens, but not on one day. Because on November 19th, 2005, the least expected one achieved a truce.
The scene seemed depicted by a specialist in creating historical paintings. Sergio Ramos, Iván Helguera, and Casillas, three madridistas symbols of the White House of Europe, were stabbed by that torrent of talent. Although, for this classic, the birth certificate does not necessarily matter: Mourinho was Madrid, although he was not born there; Messi is Barcelona, although he was born in Rosario; Ladislao Kubala was a symbol, although he was born in Budapest; Alfredo di Stéfano was more than a symbol, although he was born in Buenos Aires. But that day, the three madridistas were there, watching a scene that seemed to come out of a storybook. At the Santiago Bernabéu, a Brazilian born in Porto Alegre, with a pronounced smile on his boots and built on a giant set of teeth, was making history, for a while, stop being history.
That afternoon-night, neither the ghosts of the kings of Castilla nor the memory of the writer Féliz de Azúa - one of the founders of Ciutadans de Catalunya - could prevent Ronaldinho from being Ronaldinho. That time, Barcelona won 3-0, overwhelming their rival. But to say Barcelona is also an exaggeration: Ronaldinho, who scored two goals raised in the imagination of some Greek god, won. He scored two amazing goals. He was the foundation of the team that ended up winning the 2005-2006 Champions League, with a Lionel Messi who was starting to establish himself as a star.
But that's not all. Because what remained forever engraved from that time was not Ronaldinho's talent. No, although it was a marvel, that is not the story that remained marked. That night, after his second goal, stripped of pride, conquered by so much magic, as if it were a magical realism story conceived by Gabriel García Márquez, but not magical, Real Madrid fans began to applaud Ronaldinho, at their own stadium. Everyone, for a while, celebrated the same thing. Ronaldinho was the truce.