Rivaldo (born April 19, 1972, Recife, Brazil) is a Brazilian football (soccer) player who was among the game’s most revered players in the 1990s and a vital component of the powerful Brazilian national team that included the similarly mono-monikered Romário and Ronaldo.
Rivaldo was born into a working-class family, and, like many poor Brazilian youths, he took up football at an early age. In 1989 he made his club debut with Paulista. After playing with other clubs (Santa Cruz, Mogi Mirim, and Corinthians), the 6-foot 1-inch (1.86-metre), 161-pound (73-kg) midfielder-striker joined the Palmeiras team, which won Brazil’s national championship in 1994. Two years later Rivaldo scored 20 goals in a 16-game stretch for Deportivo de la Coruña, and he was part of Brazil’s bronze-medal-winning team at the 1996 Summer Olympic Games in Atlanta.
In 1997 FC Barcelona spent $25.7 million to obtain Rivaldo as a replacement for Ronaldo, who had transferred to another team. That year Rivaldo helped Barcelona win the Spanish League championship, a feat the team repeated in 1999. In 1997 and 1998 he was the league’s top scorer. In 1998 Rivaldo helped lead Brazil to the World Cup final against France, though the Brazilians lost 3–0. In 1999 he was a key component in Brazil’s successful bid to capture the Copa América. Also in 1999, Rivaldo was named Player of the Year by the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), polling 535 points compared with 194 for the second-place finisher, David Beckham. In 2002 Rivaldo joined perennial Italian powerhouse AC Milan, but his performance there was largely lacklustre (as it was for the World Cup-winning Brazilian team that year). In 2004 he returned to Brazil for a brief stint with Cruzeiro before moving on later that year to Greece, where he played first for Olympiacos and then for AEK Athens.
Still going in his late 30s, Rivaldo played in Uzbekistan in 2008–10. He subsequently signed with a series of teams before rejoining, in 2013, his first professional club, Mogi Mirim, where one of his teammates was his son Rivaldinho. In March 2014 the 41-year old Rivaldo retired, though he remained with the club as its president. The following year he briefly came out of retirement to help the struggling Mogi Mirim.
A fearsome free kicker and an excellent dribbler, Rivaldo traditionally worked the left side of the field. Despite his obvious striking prowess, many observers believed Rivaldo could have been even better. He sometimes appeared to lack control while hitting headers in traffic, and he was not as effective as other players inside the penalty area. At times he was also criticized for his individual style of play. Yet there is little question that Rivaldo will be remembered as one of Brazil’s best.