World's Best

I am going to watch.

I don't know much about any of the teams - including the colorful and talented (so I’ve been told) U.S. team -- but I am going to watch.

I am going to watch the World Cup not because I really care which team gets to prance around the pitch and lift that runty little trophy, but because I just discovered Ronaldinho.

Oh, there are other reasons to watch:

It is the best sporting event in the world -- whether we like it or not.

It is a truly global sporting event that is less contrived and packaged than the Olympics increasingly seem to be.

It is the world's best athletes in the world’s most popular sport playing for their nations as if defeat would cost them their lives.

It is a passion that that we simply cannot match nor understand -- one that moves fans to cause destruction and even death, and to engage in the kind of racists rants and actions that we hoped (naively so) had been relegated to old black-and-white footage of lunch-counter sit-ins, raging, slobbering police dogs and the fire hose-bearing Bull Connors of that era. FIFA, soccer's governing body, recently instituted new rules designed to penalize teams, players and coaches whose fans engage in racist behavior.

But almost any of those reasons could be enough to make me watch (those and the fact that the World Cup gives me a legit reason to go to bars every night and share the event with crazed fans from other nations, all in the name of research), but none compare to Ronaldinho, the dazzling, gifted and flamboyant mid-fielder from Brazil.

I’m actually kicking myself for not knowing him sooner. I’m almost ashamed to call myself a sports journalist when I did not know of, perhaps, the most exciting athlete on Earth.

Blame it on the provincialism that affects us all. If it doesn’t happen here then it ain’t happening, we too often think. Soccer continues to gain traction in the U.S. Lord knows almost anyone with a kid has spent many a weekend cheering their own dribbling tyke from the sidelines and dreading the day they hear the words "travel team." Pro teams here play the sport indoors and out, not always before the kinds packed stadiums that are commonplace in the European leagues.

And in Freddy Adu -- the American from Ghana who turned 17 on Sunday and may already be the most recognized U.S. star -- the sport even has its own precocious phenom.

But no excuse; I should have known Ronaldinho de Assis Moreira.

Words struggle to adequately convey what the 26-year-old with the flowing, Jheri-culrish ‘do and those bunny rabbit teeth can do with a soccer ball. The mind can conjure a more vivid vision:

Close your eyes and recall how Barry Sanders defied physics with steps, twists and stutter moves that made no sense at all and left many an NFL defender calling for his mommy.

Then envision Michael Jordan’s make-you-smack-yourself aerial feats and cocksure how-dare-you-try-to-defend-me scoring brilliance.

Splice in an Allen Iverson killer-crossover, Chad Johnson’s flamboyance, Magic Johnson’s trademark joi de vivre.

And now run the footage at NASCAR speed.

That’s what I saw when I trolled the Internet last night for video of Ronaldinho.

I saw the defending two-time FIFA World Player of the Year dribbling past, around and through three, four, six, or more defenders like they were practice pylons, then blasting the ball past, under or over a goalie that never had a chance.

I saw the world’s highest-paid futbol player (yes, more than idol David "Spice-It-Like" Beckham) launch free kicks that sailed over a line of defenders and illogically drop beneath the cross-bar and beyond another stunned goalkeeper.

I saw a player whose gifts are part genes (his older brother was an international star), part genius. He commands attention every moment he was on the pitch, and he is as dangerous when he's not scoring as when he is.

I saw a player kick a ball two, three times in the air while the player, too, was airborne. I saw a slight, almost slender player (he’s only 5-11 and weighs but 176 pounds) player with a savant’s instincts and timing, passing the ball just before he was about to be crushed by a bigger, stronger, angrier defender.

(I also saw said slight, slender player throw an elbow or two.)

I saw a player prance and dance and egg crowds on like the pitch was his stage. It was.

Forget the next M.J. In LeBron and D-Wade, we've got two of those.

No one’s ever really been anointed the next Pele. You just didn't do that. Some came close. Some (mostly Argentineans and Neapolitans, who recall his brilliant play for Napoli in Italy) soccer fans even argue that Argentinean legend Diego Armando Maradona (who led his nation to the 1986 World Cup title) was a greater player, but the hard-living star never matched Pele’s legend.

The brilliant Ronaldo, a veteran teammate of Ronaldinho (he was nicknamed "little Ronaldo" early-on to distinguish the younger from the older) is the three-time Player of the Year who also led his team to the 2002 World Cup title. But I was not moved to watch back then, and even he has now deferred leadership to his protégée.

Pelé his own self says Ronaldinho won’t be the next Pelé. He just might be better. “Maybe the greatest ever,” Pelé has said.

This I have to see.

Brazil is favored to defend its World Cup crown. But England is talented and hungry. France, led by the dazzling black Frenchman Thierry Henry, is scary. And the Czech Republic fears no team.

This is the best U.S. team ever, better than the group that reached the quarter final four years ago. They’re better ball-handlers, faster and more experienced against top-tier international foes. And yet, it’ll be a feat for the Americans to even reach the elimination rounds this go-round, due to being drawn into the tough Group E, which includes the Czech Republic, Ghana and Italy.

I’ll watch them, too. But they’re not why I’ll watch.

I’ll watch because for the next month Ronaldinho has sport's greatest stage.