ABSTRACT: The narratives presented by the press are a propitious place to spread the image of the sportsman as heroic figure, who comes out of the everyday, goes through paths unknown, overcomes insurmountable obstacles and returns to his community with the achievement of victory. On this way, we aim to analyze and reflect about how the sports section newspaper Folha de Sao Paulo described Ronaldo?s image, based on articles published between 2008 and 2011, which was the period through his return to Brazilian football. In terms of qualitative research, based on analysis of historical processes, we rely in the history of the present time, defined as an unfinished history, which aims to investigate the time of its own study object. The material of analysis (historical sources) refers to periodic Folha de Sao Paulo, a communication vehicle available on newsstands, on the Internet and on the UOL website. The option was realized because of the fact that Ronaldo had been employed by a football club from Sao Paulo, resulting in the greatest exposure of his image in local media. Along with this, there was observed a high amount of news in the period delimited. So, we limited the research on the analysis of only one newspaper, which is Folha de Sao Paulo, investigating specifically the theme characterized by the figure of Ronaldo. Initially, we analyzed the sources, which presented correlation with the chosen theory, in order to characterize the hero through a socio-historical study of football. We subdivided the chapters according to the relevance of subjects related to the theme and, also, we used the sources in order to satisfy the needs from the reflective discussions developed. Within the analysis of sources, we used the theory elaborated by Joseph Campbell, who established the idea of the “hero myth cycle”. The hero myth cycle is defined by the individual that leaves his everyday world and breaks the threshold of adventure, where he will find unknown challenges which will test his heroic nature. After this, the individual returns to the threshold with the victory elixir, which will redeem his people, giving them experience and wisdom by providing self-conquest, ending the mythic cycle. Accordingly to this, we made a characterization of sports journalism in Folha de Sao Paulo sports editorial, which showed particularities about the subjectivity and ideology implied in the periodic that was analyzed. The narratives researched about Ronaldo?s image showed how Folha de Sao Paulo builds sports scene, from the facts presented by reality, permeating its analyzes through discursive strategies, which use the image of the athlete as a protagonist. The use of the hero, as the character from stories created by the journal, is justified by the need for identifying the athlete as a sports and social reference, able to affect the fans imagination. Such strategies aim to develop the consumption practices of both journal and sports spectacle, which is ruled by the logic of cultural entertainment industry. In some discourses, we observed that the newspaper praised the figure of Ronaldo from a construction of a sports heroe mythologizing scenario. In order to this, the journal used the sentimentality proposed by romantic narratives that aims to reach the reader through the passion, which is a characteristic of Brazilian football identity. As the news about that deal conquests, the narratives about athlete?s failures also use the protagonism of a player to transform the heroe in a villain, who failed and did not correspond to expectations. At last, we identified that the newspaper consolidated and legitimized the discourse expressed by Ronaldo, about the end of his career.
