Memorable moments: the video of Ronaldinho hitting the crossbar broke the internet. Was it fake or not?

I guess everyone’s seen that video at some point. Ronaldinho puts on his new Nike football boots and then crashes into the crossbar without much trouble. Is the Brazilian that technically gifted, or is it fake? The whole world asked.

Ronaldinho has made history in many ways during his illustrious career.The Brazilian was part of the Selecao team that won the World Cup in 2002, and also won the Champions League trophy with Barcelona.

But he also has one unusual accolade – he was the star of the first YouTube video to reach one million views.

In 2005, the legendary midfielder brought down the internet with a Nike advert that captured him making his famous crossbar challenge, with Ronaldinho crashing into the goal structure several times in a row without the ball falling to the ground.

What kind of magic is that, you ask? Well, that was the question everyone was asking at the time and many fans believed the footage wasn’t real.

Why? Largely because people just couldn’t believe it was even possible. Still, there were a few other clues that revealed that the clip was faked.

For example, a few individuals didn’t like the sudden zooming out of the camera, the momentary disappearance of the ball, but Nike didn’t admit to the fake for a long time.

It was only years later that Ronaldinho admitted that it was just an advertisement and the video was edited. However, YouTubers with the name Freekickers put the Brazilian to the test in 2018 to see how many times he could actually hit the crossbar without falling off, and Ronaldinho succeeded twice.

It’s still an impressive feat, however, hitting the crossbar from the penalty spot to have the ball bounce accurately off your foot several times in a row each time really isn’t something that even the best footballers can do, even though a lot of people thought so when the video was released.

Source: YouTube, Goal