There are two Ze Robertos playing in Germany right now. I know of at least 3 named Alex, a handful of Juninho, and a Portuguese player named Pele. Seems to be confusing to me and would seem to be a bad career decision since scouts/teams might confuse you for someone else. Can someone provide some insight as to why players pick the same nickname?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denilson lists five players named Denilson. I noticed at the Club World Cup that Pohang Steelers had a different Denilson than Arsenal.
Either they aren't the ones who pick the nickname or they pick it and don't care if anyone else has the same name
To be fair, it's a cultural thing to be referred to by your nickname, and it's not that strange when you put it into context. I know a dozen people called "Faz", at least 3 who answer to the nickname "Jonesy", and 5 who respond to the name "Scotty" etc etc etc. It's just that in this country it's not common to have nicknames on the back of shirts, where as in Brazil and South America it appears to be the norm.
Now I'm kinda glad most Brazilian players have a nickname. If they were known by their real family names, about every third Brazilian player would be known as "dos Santos". Nicknames would be a good idea for Korean players as well, so one wouldn't be confused with 4 or 5 players in the team all names "Lee" or "Park".
There are Ronaldão, Ronaldo and Ronaldinho. Ronaldo was Ronaldinho before he became Ronaldo. Ronaldinho should now be called Ronaldo. Ronaldo should become Ronaldão.
Heheheheheheh. (For those not familiar with Portuguese, Ronaldão, Ronaldo and Ronaldinho roughly are Big Ron, Ron, and Little Ron respectively.)