Who is Ronaldinho’s Son Joao Mendes

In football, as in life, it’s never easy to be the son of a famous father. Joao Mendes knows this better than most with a dad who is considered to be one of the greatest Brazilian forwards in football history, Ronaldinho.

Some players are able to emulate or even surpass the legendary achievements of their footballing fathers. Youri Djorkaeff’s dad, Jean, represented France on 48 occasions, including at the 1966 World Cup. Djorkaeff Jr amassed 82 international appearances and won the first global title in his nation’s history on home soil in 1998.

Mendes has some big shoes to fill. Ronaldinho not only piled up a mountain of silverware – including the 2002 World Cup – but won the hearts and minds of football fans across the globe for his joyous approach to the game. The onus is now on the 19-year-old Mendes to write his own story. The latest chapter has taken him on a shock move to Burnley in England’s second tier.

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Career so Far

Stop-start tour of academies

Born in Rio de Janeiro, the teenager comes from a family of accomplished athletes outside his famous father. Mendes’ mother, Janaina Mendes, became a professional dancer, while his uncle, Roberto de Assis Moreira, Ronaldinho’s brother, played for some of Brazil’s biggest clubs. His cousin, Diego Assis, also had a modest football career.

With such an entourage, it would have been surprising to see Mendes take a non-sporting path. At the age of 10, he joined the Flamengo academy, before moving on to Vasco da Gama and Boavista-RJ. Three years later, Mendes had a successful trial with Cruzeiro, hiding his father’s identity from the scouts.

A year later, Mendes signed his first professional contract with the Belo Horizonte club. It was without having played for the first team that Mendes left Cruzeiro at the start of 2022. After a year without a club, he tried his luck at FC Barcelona, where his father had shone for several seasons. Although his initial trials failed to convince the scouts, the extension of his contract, at the request of club president Joan Laporta, enabled him to finally commit to the Catalan giants.

Not everything went according to plan, however, and Mendes struggled to establish himself with the Juvenil A (under-19s) team. Finally, after just under a year and a half in Catalonia, and despite the fact that he even trained with the professional squad, the time had already come to leave and fly to England, where a new role now awaits him.

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Style of Play

More athletic than his father

Capable of playing as a centre-forward or a supporting striker, Mendes looks a promising player. Standing at 1.78m, he has an athletic build but is also technically adept – surprisingly so. Able to hit powerful shots from distance, he is also capable of creating space thanks to his interesting bodywork and speed.

It should be noted that he has a few problems in the air and is therefore more effective when he has the ball at his feet. However, it will be some time before we can draw up a more advanced profile of the young Brazilian, who has yet to play a single professional match and whose playing time with Barcelona’s youth teams has been fairly limited.

Contract Details

Transfer fee and length

The 19-year-old striker signed a two-season contract with the Clarets until 2026. Relegated to the Championship at the end of last season, Scott Parker’s men are aiming for a return to the Premier League in 2025/26, and are counting on their new Brazilian to help them get there.

Having left Barcelona, where he only played for the youth teams, Mendes will be discovering a country where his father never set foot during his club career. Although his salary has not yet been revealed, it is easy to assume that a move to England, to a club that was still in the top flight of British football until recently, would have offered him a more than attractive financial package.

Fitting in at Burnley

‘Project’ player

In Scott Parker’s preferred 4-2-3-1 formation at Burnley, there appear to be several options open to Mendes. And it could well be that he will make his professional debut in the attacking midfield position. Following the official departure of Wilson Odobert to Tottenham Hotspur, there is one less winger in the pecking order for the Brazilian to overtake. Mendes’ profile could also enable him to form an interesting partnership with Wout Weghorst, who joined the Clarets this summer from Hoffenheim.

Parker admitted that the club saw Mendes as “a development player and a project in that sense”. That makes perfect sense. Despite his lofty heritage, the 19-year-old is a player who has never appeared at the highest level and will need time to adapt to the Championship, the seventh-best league in world football.

All statistics courtesy of Transfermarkt. Correct as of 19th August 2024.