Kaká won the 2007 Ballon d'Or comfortably ahead of both Messi and Ronaldo
Milan paid a reported 8.5 million euros for a Brazilian playmaker in 2003, a sum owner Silvio Berlusconi later called peanuts. Four years later Kaká had won the Champions League and finished ahead of both Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi for the Ballon d'Or, among the few players to add a World Cup winner's medal too.
Ricardo Izecson dos Santos Leite was born in Gama, in Brazil's Federal District, on 22 April 1982, to a teacher and a civil engineer. His nickname came from his little brother Digão, who could not say Ricardo and called him Caca. He joined São Paulo's academy at eight, and at 18 fractured his spine in a swimming pool accident that could have ended his career; he recovered fully, credited God and has tithed to his church ever since. In his senior debut season he scored twice in two minutes as a substitute to win the final of the Torneio Rio-São Paulo.
At Milan he displaced Rui Costa within a month and helped win Serie A in his first season, being named the league's footballer of the year in 2004. In the 2005 Champions League final in Istanbul he set up much of Milan's 3–0 half-time lead, including a curling pass for Hernán Crespo, before Liverpool came back and won on penalties. With Andriy Shevchenko gone to Chelsea, Kaká became the attack's focal point, top-scoring in the 2006–07 Champions League with ten goals, three of them against Manchester United in the semi-finals. Milan beat Liverpool 2–1 in the final on 23 May 2007.
Awards followed in a rush: UEFA Club Footballer of the Year, the Ballon d'Or with 444 votes on 2 December 2007, the FIFA World Player of the Year, and the Golden Ball at the Club World Cup after scoring against Boca Juniors. He moved to Real Madrid in 2009 for 67 million euros, then the second-largest fee ever, but injuries sapped his pace. After a season back at Milan he joined Orlando City and retired in 2017.
For Brazil he was part of the squad that won the 2002 World Cup and took the Golden Ball at the 2009 Confederations Cup. He became the youngest UN World Food Programme ambassador in 2004 and the first athlete with 10 million Twitter followers.
Source: Kaká
