World Cup 2010 in South Africa

Player profile: Robinho

Robinho (or Róbson de Souza as is his real name) is one of the biggest talents to come out of Brazil in the recent years and will be participating for the second time in a World Cup competition. Robinho started his career at a very young age playing Futsal, a popular variant of football that is played indoors in a smaller field and with a total of six players from each team. When he was just nine years old Robinho scored 73 goals playing Futsal for his local team, where he was discovered by a coach that later took him to play for the Santos youth team. Robinho has repeatedly confirmed that playing Futsal as a youngster has helped him a lot with his technique and amazing dribbling skills on the field.

Conquering Brazil was easy for Robinho, and he started playing for the first team of Santos at just 17 years old scoring 10 goals in his first season. His team won the Campeonato Brasileiro twice with Robinho in the roster, while leading in goal scoring for two consecutive championships. At the end of the 2005 season Robinho’s mother was kidnapped by a gang asking ransom to release her. The story ended well, but Robinho decided that it was time to move on somewhere else.

Coming to Real Madrid is a dream come true for every professional player, and Robinho wore number 10 with great honour. In his first season with Real he managed to score 14 goals after 37 total appearances, playing in one of the hardest leagues in the world. Robinho helped his team with another championship, and even though he was third in overall goal scoring, Real Madrid decided to trade him in efforts of bringing Cristiano Ronaldo to the team. The managers decided to keep this a secret from Robinho and in the background, but when the young player found out he demanded a trade.

So on the last day of the summer trading season for the Premier League, Robinho made a surprise jump to Manchester City for over 40 million Euro. Robinho finished the 2008-2009 season as Manchester City’s top scorer with 14 goals, while placing in fourth place overall in the league. Next year his playing minutes decreased dramatically though, Robinho would only play every second game. He stated that since 2010 was a World Cup year he would like to play as much as possible and be ready for the biggest international tournament, once again demanding a trade and on January 28 of 2010 Robinho returned to his first love Santos.

Playing for Brazil Robinho is practically still a novice, and he was given very little chance to play in the 2006 World Cup finals. Despite that, Robinho has played over 70 times for his national team, while finding the net 20 times during the same period. Over the years Robinho became one of the regular strikers of the Brazilian team, and will definitely have a key part at the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.

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