Ronaldo and Bia Antony

In April, Ronaldo got involved in an scandal in Rio de Janeiro.

Shortly after the scandal, Ronaldo's current girfriend, Maria Beatriz Antony (called Bia Antony in Portuguese), packed her stuff and moved to her parents' home. Ronaldo and Bia had met in 2007, when she was concluding her studies of Engineering at the University of Brasilia; in January of this year, Bia and Ronaldo declared to be having an affair. Bia is now taking a post-graduation course in Paris, France.

Last week, Bia confirmed that she was pregnant (Ronaldo didn't know about that yet; the player had gone through a vasectomy surgery, and decided to revert it after meeting Bia). In an interview to a popular TV program in Brazil, Ronaldo declared that "he was still confused, he was sorry, he wouldn't dare asking for forgiveness".

Today, Brazilian newspapers announced that Ronaldo and Bia are in good terms again.

Why so many Brazilian soccer players with the letter 'R'?

It is well known that Brazilian players rank amongst the best in the World.
In the recent past, a remarkable number of Brazilian top players happened to have their names starting with the letter R.

To remember a few:

Romário. Most important Brazilian player in the 1994 World Cup campaign. FIFA Player of the Year in 1994.
Ronaldo. Most important Brazilian player in the 2002 World Cup. FIFA Player of the year in 1996, 1997 and 2002.
Rivaldo. FIFA Player of the Year in 1999.
Ronaldinho. FIFA Okater of the Year in 2004 and 2005.
Roberto Carlos. One of the Galactics of Real Madrid.
Ricardo Kaká. FIFA Player of the Year in 2007.
Robinho Robson de Souza. Currently with Real Madrid, one of the stars of the Brazilian team.

It's no that much surprising that, in thirteen years (1994-2007), five Brazilian players had been elected, in eight occasions, best player of the World (with Robinho being a certain candidate for future awards).

What is surprising is that all the mentioned players have their names starting with R. Why?

The answer is: coincidence.

The letter R is not the most common in Portuguese; dictionaries bring more words with B, L and M than R. The most common names in Portuguese are catholic names such as José (Joseph), João (John) and Paulo (Paul).

Roberto, Ronaldo and Ricardo are fairly common names; Robson and Romario are rare; Rivaldo is very rare.

It was just a coincidence that a set of excellent soccer players had all their names starting with the same letter, and even more that this letter is an R.