Did you hear the funny story about about Brazilian soccer player Ronaldinho? It went like this:

RAGGED Ronaldinho turned into a World Cup flop because he spent his nights enjoying illicit romps with his French girlfriend, The Sun can reveal.

Gorgeous model Alexandra Paressant said the Brazilian ace broke team rules to sneak off most evenings to bed her.

If that wasn't tiring enough, she said he then liked to play World Cup football game FIFA 2006 on his PLAYSTATION.

Alexandra, 22, said: The Brazilian coach had banned WAGS [wives and girlfriends] from the team's hotel but we couldn't bear to be apart.

"So nearly every night he would come to my hotel room and we would make love all night."

Sometimes we didn't even make it into the room, we would make love there and then in the corridor. We are mad for each other.

It goes on like that, in The Sun.

Germany's Bild reported a similar story. I think. It's in German.

The Sun's (and perhaps Bild's) story matches up with the material on this site, and uses the same photos:

http://blog.aufeminin.com/blog/see_29999_1/alexandra-paressant-top-model-francais-et-girlfriend-de-ronaldinho

I contacted the blogger (Sabine1291) inquiring where her pictures came from and was called within a couple of hours by a French woman named Olivia claiming to be Alexandra's manager, or friend, or something. In less-than-precise English (admittedly a shade better than my French), Olivia described Alexandra's brilliant career: Hawaiian Tropic modeling, contracts with Elite (Brazil) and Ikon (New York) agencies, a gig as the face of L'Oreal and a possible shot at the next Guess girl job. She said Alexandra would be in New York in October and suggested we shoot her. I said we didn't know much about the situation yet, but maybe for starters I'd like to buy a picture for Grapevine. She gave me Alexandra's phone number. I said It's too late for me to call (11 PM French time), I'll take it up Monday. She said No, you can call, Alexandra's in Brazil. I asked Why then have you given me a French phone number. She said Alexandra has an international cell phone...

I called Alexandra. She said, in very imprecise English, that she could send me some lo-res photos of herself now, but I would not be able to get high-res for a little while. When I asked if I could just call Elite or Ikon, she fumbled a bit, then came up with a halfway decent save: No, no, don't call them, I have done only fashion modeling for them. You want the sexy, no? I send you sexy photos. The deal was more or less (can't overstress the language barrier here) I'd tell her which of the sexy I wanted to buy and then she would help me get them at the correct resolution for publication. Ok, whatever, just send me the pictures already. She sent me 17, and they're the same pictures several Web sites are running. (You may have noticed that Bild took its photo down.):

Some are model Alexandra Kabi, whose breasts are waaay too full to be a fashion model, as you can see here.

A couple of them have a nautical theme, those would be from Aida Yespica's 2005 calendar.

Others, notably the one where she's wearing a yellow see-through shirt that is up on the Sun's site, are Giorgia Palmas.

She also sent me a half-dozen Francesca Lodos for good measure.

Seeing them here and there, I couldn't quite place the photos. But when all 17 landed in my inbox, it hit me: I'd been looking at these same women in my research (ahem) for the World Cup girlfriends/wives piece that ended up running in July's Grapevine. She picked the wrong Playboy editor to punk, I tell you what.

There's no competent news story I can find tying Ronaldinho to Alexandra Paressant. (The Sun doesn't say how its interview with her came about -- she probablky just called the paper up and asked to talk to a reporter.)

Some sites show a picture of Ronaldinho being lovingly tackled by her as he stretches on the pitch. Problem: The tackler's name is Sheila Soares.

Ronaldinho or not, does she even exist?

I say no. Other than the bullshit blog, the only other site about her is this one:

http://alexandraparessant.biosstars.com/infos.htm.

Note the reference to soccer player Jose Cobos, her "previous" footballer "fiance". Well, according to a couple readers of the blog, hes been married for years and has kids.

So, I guess this means Ronny and Alex won't be adopting that Guatemalan orphan, as described on the blog. Man, orphans can never catch a break.