Ronaldinho: Well Done T&T.
By: Shaun Fuentes.[/size]
Brazilian FIFA World “Player of the Year” Ronaldinho met up with FIFA Vice President Jack Warner in Zurich this week and in a brief appearance with top FIFA officials, he was able to extend words of congratulations to this country on hearing of its qualification for Germany 2006 as the smallest nation to ever reach the world stage.
Warner came off the plane from Tokyo where he attended the FIFA World Club Championship, and headed to the FIFA World Gala Award 2005 at the Zurich Opera House on Monday where he also presented the FIFA 2005 FIFA Fair Play Award to Peru’s Amazon town of Iquitos which is situated in the middle of the Amazon.
The award was given to Iquitos based on Warner’s recommendation that they be a host town for matches during the 2005 FIFA Under 17 World Championship in September. The town was able to complete the construction of a 25,000 seater stadium in the short space of four months and had capacity attendances for the three matches played there. This made Warner a proud man and it led to FIFA’s decision that they were deserving of the award.
But the man of the moment was undoubtedly Ronaldinho and Warner wasted no time in bouncing shoulders with the Brazilian after he received his accolade.
“Ronaldinho is by far a role model for everyone who loves the game of football and what a privilege it was to hear him say well done and good luck Trinidad (and Tobago) when I spoke to him after the ceremony,” Warner told TTFF Media. “He may not know too much about how Trinidad and Tobago plays but the fact that he is aware of us qualifying for a World Cup shows that people are taking note of it.” The CONCACAF President said he also expressed his regrets to the player on the late cancellation of a proposed friendly international against Brazil in March but is maintaining his hopes that T&T will have further opportunities for such big occasions.
“I'm the happiest man on earth - I play for a great team, I have lots of friends, people appreciate the way I play, they appreciate my club and I want to continue to give happiness,” added the Barcelona star who scored a hattrick to help Brazil’s Olympic team to a 7-0 win over T&T’s Olympic team in a friendly encounter back in January, 2000.
Warner, since the draw in Leipzig has been getting the thumbs up from persons in all corners.
“I tell you that it has been truly amazing to see what qualifying for this World Cup has done for the country in terms of the recognition it is now getting. Everywhere I go and my other officials from home who were at the draw, can tell you that all kinds of people have been saying how happy they are to see Trinidad and Tobago in the World Cup. They all want to know more about the country, they want to come to the country to see the people, the beaches the place on a whole, to experience the music and the culture. And I have told them that we have all intentions of giving them a full taste of what we have to offer both on and off the playing field when we go to Germany in June,” Warner added.
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Warner left in photo with Ronaldinho at the Gala Ceremony on Monday, photo courtesy Shaun Fuentes.
