Ronaldo would never be accused of being a fashion trendsetter.
The legendary striker killed any hope of being a style icon with his infamous haircut at the 2002 World Cup.
Ronaldo showed up in South Korea/Japan with some hair, although the fact that it was deliberately shaped into a small triangle turned quite a few heads.
Unsurprisingly, despite Ronaldo’s incredible tournament that saw him claim the Golden Boot to help his country win the top prize, the unusual hairstyle failed to take off. During an era where the v, the mullet and the much-maligned vullet hairstyle was the style, it’s actually impressive that the Brazilian managed to sport a new haircut that seemed too ridiculous for his fans to try for themselves.
It turns out Ronaldo had a perfectly valid reason for the strange do. As he explained to ESPN Brazil, distraction was his main goal.
He was harbouring a knock heading into the competition and to draw the focus away from the worrying injury, he got out his razor.
“My groin was hurting. I was only at 60%. So I shaved my head.”
“Everybody was only talking about my injury. When I arrived in training with this haircut everybody stopped talking about the injury.”
Can’t argue with that logic and his performances did not suffer because of it. Ronaldo fired home an impressive eight goals in the 2002 World Cup and what’s more impressive is, he managed to be one of only two players to score on the great Oliver Kahn. The other being, Robbie Keane, of course.
