Without question the transfer of the summer, possibly even the transfer of the decade. But can the little Brazilian live up to the hype?
Born Robson de Souza in Sao Vicente, Sao Paolo, Robinho played football from an early age, joining his first football academy at the age of six.
He then quickly rose through the youth ranks at Santos, under the guidance of the great Pele before making his debut for the club’s senior team in 2002, aged 18.
Nine goals in 24 matches in his debut season were enough to earn a call-up to the Brazil squad for 2003 Confederations Cup and the youngster was soon attracting attention from a host of top European sides.
However things took a turn for the worse in November 2004 when his mother was kidnapped at gunpoint by a Sao Paolo gang who demanded the player paid a substantial ransom for her release, which he eventually did after a harrowing six weeks.
The next summer Robinho finally moved to Europe with Real Madrid for €24 million in July 2005.
Goals seemed harder to come by in La Liga, with just eight in his first campaign at the Bernabeu. He then fell out of favour with new boss Fabio Capello in 2006/07 and by the time Bernt Schuster took charge at the start of the following campaign, rumours were abound that the Brazilian may be on the move again. Despite this 2007/08 was Robinho’s most productive in Spain in terms of league goals scored (11).
Throughout the summer of 2008 there was widespread speculation that Robinho would be moving to Chelsea, but with Real and the Londoners being unable to agree on a fee by the transfer deadline day, Manchester City, who had been taken over by a group of Arabic billionaires earlier the same day, swooped.