It Began With Dinho

During my childhood, I heard many kids talk about their sports idols! I heard the names like Derek Jeter, Lebron James, Tom Brady, Tiger Woods, Michael Phelps, Floyd Mayweather, and to me at the time, these amazing athletes never stuck with me for some odd reason. Now, out of all these amazing athletes, only one stuck for me, and his name was Ronaldinho! Now, many people are going to read this and say, "well of course dude, you were probably a soccer fan," but that actually wasn't the case. I knew of soccer obviously but I had never played or watch the sport as a fan. To me the sport that stuck when I was young kid was basketball, but the only thing I truly knew about it professionally was that Michael Jordan was in Space Jam and he was a freak of nature. Now, that being said, I never got to witness this phenom play live, only got to hear about how amazing he was, and got to see some clips of him in the playoffs. So, that wasn't so affectionate to me because I hadn't experienced it during my time.

Now, for me, the day I saw Ronaldinho is when my whole life changed completely. This day I will never forget because it literally was a life changing event, and I was at home switching through the channels when I came across Barcelona playing and it was funny because I was just about to change the channel when I had seen this guy that looked a little bit goofy to me get the ball. Now I had no idea what he was about to do, nor did I truly care, but something made me not switch the channel; and I'm so glad I didn't, because as soon as he got the ball, I saw magic before my eyes. Ronaldinho ended up going through the defense with such ease and was close to the penalty box when he got fouled. Now when he got up, he had this HUGE smile on his face and I could feel the enjoyment he got from doing that! He was having fun and made it look SO magical! I fell in love with the sport at that moment, and I didn't even realize it yet. From that day on, I ended up wanting to play soccer, but had no clue on how to do that, and that didn't matter because I knew at that moment I'd do anything to find a way to play.

Eventually, I did find a group of kids who played in my middle school and the funny thing is just like I didn't know what Ronaldinho was going to do with that ball, I had no clue that these group of kids would end up being my very close friends that I basically consider family today. Soccer or Futbol, whatever you want to call it, it's a beautiful sport that will make people come together from different backgrounds and unite them because of the passion we have for it. Ronaldinho showed me the love he had for the sport based upon his body language and the way he looked at that ball. Now every time I look at a soccer ball, it makes all my problems go away and I truly feel at peace. Today I'm building a community with the sport I love by having a podcast about soccer! It doesn't stop there. I've come out with a fan page through Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, and hopefully you guys will follow it and help me build my community.