It would be hard to imagine stranger bedfellows than Ronaldinho and Jair Bolsonaro. Ronaldinho became a global icon in the 2000s, his carefree manner on the pitch belying an enormous talent that made him the best footballer in the world before the emergence of Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo. He was the son of a dockyard worker who died when he was just eight and grew up in poverty in Porto Alegre. Bolsonaro, by contrast, is the champion of Brazil’s rich — a bombastic far-right politician who has made his career directing insults at women, gay people, and ethnic minorities.

And yet, in the increasingly bizarre world of Brazilian politics, the two have been drawn together. In December, Ronaldinho met with Bolsonaro and was pictured holding his book — an endorsement for his presidential campaign that drew headlines across Brazil. In the days that followed he was even rumored to be a possible senate candidate for Bolsonaro’s Patriota party, although both parties maintain that has yet to be agreed.

The backdrop to this unlikely story is the turbulence produced by the 2016 parliamentary coup against Brazilian president Dilma Rouseff. For the right wing, her removal was meant to vindicate antipetismo, a fanatical belief that Dilma’s Workers’ Party (PT) was the root of Brazil’s corruption problems. The wave of corruption allegations which followed Dilma’s removal, embroiling even her historically unpopular successor, did little to give credence to their thesis.