Ronaldo's triangle haircut from 2002 is considered one of the worst in football history. Behind it was a plan that began with a mysterious collapse in 1998.
Saitama, 26 June 2002. Before the World Cup semi-final between Brazil and Turkey, the Brazilian anthem plays, the camera moves along the line of stars and stops at Ronaldo. All that's left on the striker's head is a small black triangle, the rest is shaved clean.
Millions watching ask themselves the same question in that moment: Why would the best forward in the world do that to himself? The answer says a lot about how well Ronaldo understood the mechanics of the media.
Ronaldo's collapse in 1998: The day that overshadowed everything
To understand the haircut, you have to go back four years. Paris, 12 July 1998, the day of the World Cup final against France: Hours before kick-off, Ronaldo suffered a seizure at the team hotel. Team-mate César Sampaio saved his life, and by his own account, Ronaldo was unconscious for three or four minutes. At the clinic, no epileptic seizure could be diagnosed, and the cause remains unexplained to this day.
His name was missing from the first team sheet, yet shortly before kick-off he was in the starting eleven after all. Brazil lost 0-3, Ronaldo was anonymous, and speculation has surrounded that day ever since, from stress theories to conspiracy tales. None of them has been proven.
From that day on, Ronaldo's body was a global talking point. Every report about his condition became a headline, all the more so when knee problems troubled him shortly before the 2002 semi-final. The media could talk of little else, and the next drama seemed already written.
World Cup 2002: The haircut as a distraction
Ronaldo responded in his own way: He shaved his head, leaving only the triangle at the hairline. His team-mates found the cut terrible and told him to get rid of it, exactly the reaction he had been hoping for.
The plan worked: “The journalists saw my haircut and forgot about the injury,” Ronaldo later told Sports Illustrated.
Freed from the injury narrative, he toe-poked the winner against Turkey in the semi-final. In the Yokohama final, he beat Germany almost single-handedly: With two goals past Oliver Kahn, Ronaldo fired Brazil to their fifth World Cup title.
He finished as the tournament's top scorer and was later named world player of the year. The redemption for Paris was complete.
The haircut, though, lived on. Around the world, kids got the triangle shaved in, much to their parents' dismay. Years later, Ronaldo apologised to all the mothers whose kids got the same cut, calling the haircut terrible himself. It helped little: One of the ugliest haircuts in World Cup history became its most unforgettable distraction.
