Rivaldo: Hero of the Miserable

The former Barcelona and Brazil star, who celebrated his 44th birthday on April 19, will always be remembered for his talent, his eccentricity and countless moments of genius that are imprinted in the memories of fans.

In the world of football, there are battles that have gone down in history. And one of them is the 3-3 draw between Barca and Man Utd on the field.Camp Nou, November 25, 1998. That day, the home and away teams took turns taking the lead but in the end both teams were evenly matched.

The goals of this match were so beautiful that experts said they deserved to be printed in football textbooks. That was the wall-pass performance of the famous striker duo Andy Cole - Dwight Yorke, the centimeter-precise cross of David Beckham. But above all, it was the performance of Rivaldo. A free kick with only two steps became a trademark, and a left-footed flip was so beautiful that goalkeeper Peter Schmeichel was stunned. At the end of the match, Rivaldo also had a long-range shot that hit the crossbar. That day, Camp Nou roared with the name of the boy with the magical left foot.

That was Barca's Rivaldo, the brightest light in the years when the Camp Nou was shrouded in darkness. Before he arrived, Barca was glorious with Johan Cruyff's "Dream Team". After he left, Ronaldinho and then Lionel Messi created a Barca of championship victories.

Rivaldo’s period was a time when Barca was confused in the transfer market and lost direction in their development (they bought half of Ajax’s squad with the motto “Ajax is great”, but failed). Two consecutive La Liga titles in 1998 and 1999 were not enough to compensate for the damage the club had to endure in the position of a team below their arch-rival Real Madrid. At that time, Barca was only at its best in Rivaldo’s goals.

The match against Valencia in the final round of La Liga in 2000-01 is the clearest proof. It was only a match to fight for the last ticket to the Champions League next season, but Rivaldo's hat-trick is immortal. The goal in the 90th minute after a beautiful bicycle kick to make the score 3-2 for Barcelona was broadcast hundreds of times that day, becoming the face of La Liga advertising, causing the Nou Camp to collapse when fans rushed onto the pitch to celebrate after the referee blew the final whistle. Barca is a club with strange goals. If their museum has Ronaldinho's hip-swing at Stamford Bridge, Messi's solo goal against Getafe, then Rivaldo's bicycle kick deserves a similar status.

Rivaldo is the embodiment of the best of a struggling Barca between two successful eras associated with Johan Cruyff and Frank Rijkaard until now.

Rivaldo played behind the striker, but he scored a lot of goals. And they were often the goals of a big player in big games. On 18 October 2000, Rivaldo scored a hat-trick against the mighty AC Milan in a 3-3 draw at the San Siro. The first goal came from a low free-kick under the Milan wall. The second came from a free-kick that flew over the home players' heads, at a time when no one dared to jump from the AC Milan wall.

Those two goals are enough to show how impressive Rivaldo's technique, free kick talent and eccentricity are. Rivaldo, along with Sinisa Mihajlovic in Serie A and David Beckham in the Premier League, are the three best free kick takers of their generation. Each has their own style, Mihajlovic's is lightning fast and swirling shots in the air, David Beckham's is perfect curves with extremely beautiful leaning form. Rivaldo's special skill is to shoot without momentum or just jump for two steps.

Rivaldo's most beautiful image is not necessarily Barca, but the yellow-green jersey of Brazil. In that team, his name spread all over the world, and there he won the hearts of fans with his goals and technical moves with his strangely flexible left foot. The five years that the number 10 shirt of Selecao was given to Rivaldo were five years of glorious and captivating Brazilian football, which to this day has not been found again. In those five years, the name Rivaldo was placed second after Ronaldo, but in reality the importance of the "Brazilian Wizard" was even higher than that of the "Alien".

The shock that Brazil received in France was revived after the 1999 Copa America, where Rivaldo was the best player of the tournament. And then, he won the Golden Ball. When Ronaldo was still struggling with injuries, Rivaldo's timely brilliance was the driving force that helped Brazil reach the 2002 World Cup finals after many problems. And at the finals in Japan - Korea, with five goals in the first five matches, Rivaldo paved the way for Brazil to go to the Golden Cup, just like the way he made Oliver Kahn vomit the ball so that Ronaldo could swoop in to shoot the rebound in the final against Germany.

Winning the 2002 World Cup was the pinnacle of Rivaldo's career. Photo: Reuters.

"The Heroic World of Les Miserables" is the name of Rivaldo's autobiography. In it, he tells about his childhood in the slums, the injustices he had to endure until he became famous. His legs were bow-legged, his face was full of hardship. But the legendary Samba dancer played football beautifully and talentedly. Even now, when he turned 45, fans still can't stop mentioning him to express their admiration. That legend had a very long career, but the peak was like a short meteor: brilliant to the point of being dazzling.

According to VNE