Rivaldo, full name Vitor Borba Ferreira, (born April 19, 1972 in Recife) is a Brazilian football player.
Rivaldo signed professional terms at the age of 16 in 1989 with Santa Cruz after impressing local scouts in a junior tournament. He joined Brazilian first division club Mogi-Mirim in 1991.
Rivaldo signed for Corinthians in 1993 and made his international debut in December 1993, scoring the only goal in 1-0 victory over Mexico in a friendly international.
Rivaldo signed for Palmeiras in 1994 and won the Brazilian league championship on the same year. He won the São Paulo state championship with Palmeiras in 1996. He moved to Spain in 1996 and joined Deportivo La Coruña. He then transferred to Barcelona in August 1997.
Winning second Spanish league title with Barcelona in 1999, Rivaldo won both FIFA and World Soccer magazine's World Player of the Year awards. He was voted European Footballer of the Year by France Football magazine.
In June 2002, Barça decided to release Rivaldo from his contract a year before it was due to expire and he signed a three-year contract with Italian Serie A club A.C. Milan. He left the star-studded Milan after a season of very few starts. After a brief stint back in Brazil with Cruzeiro (11 games played, 2 goals scored), he signed with Greek power Olympiakos for the 2004-05 season.
He has played over 60 games for the Brazilian national team and played in the winning side of the 2002 World Cup. However, he would receive a large fine from FIFA because of his actions in a group stage match of that event against Turkey. During an encounter with Turkey defender Alpay Özalan, Alpay kicked a ball in his general direction while the referee was looking away. Rivaldo held his hands to his face as if he had been hit by the ball, and the referee was successfully deceived into sending Alpay off. Television replays proved that Rivaldo was not hit by the ball in the face, but in the body.
|- style="text-align: center;" | width="30%" |Preceded by:
Zinedine Zidane | width="40%" style="text-align: center;" |FIFA World Player of the Year
1999 | width="30%" |Succeeded by:
Zinedine Zidane
