In 1991, an 18-year-old young man stood in front of a bakery in Paulista, a slum in Recife, in northeastern Brazil, waiting for an interview with local media.
He didn't look like a footballer, with an inconspicuous brown T-shirt hanging over his shoulders and long legs bent outward at his knees, a sign of vitamin D deficiency and the reason for his bowed gait.
The young man's cheeks looked somewhat sunken, the result of his chronic malnutrition and the loss of most of his teeth.
He recently became a member of the Santa Cruz team, but his performance was very bad, which led to the media who are good at catching the wind and the shadows, and he was approached by TV reporters to talk about his career ambitions for the future.
While drinking fresh coconuts, the humble young man replied: "My dream has come true, and it is my dream to play for Santa Cruz!" I want to be an idol for the fans. ”
Time flies by like a white colt, and in the blink of an eye, Rivaldo will turn 50 next April, and he has achieved a lot of achievements.
He can now look back on his career and not only greatly exceed his own expectations, but also refute the doubts about him, he was never an ambitious player, and public opinion generally believes that such a person will not succeed.
Ten years after that interview, Rivaldo won the Ballon d'Or, was named FIFA World Player of the Year and contributed everything to Barcelona, and the hat-trick against Valencia is still considered by many fans to be the team's greatest solo performance ever.
In 2002, he lifted the World Cup and became an integral part of Brazil, like Ronaldo and Ronaldo Jr. A year later, he won the Champions League for AC Milan.
Rivaldo never had big dreams, simply because his upbringing didn't allow it. Dreaming is just a luxury.
"You have to live in poverty to know what real poverty is," Rivaldo said in a 1999 interview with the Argentine media Sport Illustrated, "You work all day just to get very little and then continue to suffer from hunger." At Paulista, dreaming is hard. ”
Rivaldo grew up in a slum on the outskirts of Recife, where dreamers were seen as delusional. As a young boy, he would help his parents work on weekends, weed in the garden, and sell gum and popsicles on the beach. He would only come to camp outside the stadium when Santa Cruz had a home game, apparently he couldn't afford tickets and could only imagine the game outside.
In the eyes of Rivaldo's teacher, he was just a timid boy, nervous to read aloud, but more disciplined than his two older brothers. He likes to play football barefoot and worships Zico and Maradona, traits that are not much different from boys in Brazil.
Friends remember how Rivaldo was most skilled at controlling the ball, the ball was like the ball stuck to his feet, and such a talent was surprising for such a skinny child.
At the age of 13, Rivaldo got his first pair of sneakers from his father, a second-hand pick-up. Three years later, he wore the shoes to Santa Cruz for a trial.
At this critical moment, his father, Romill, was killed by a speeding bus, which made Rivaldo so distraught that he was even ready to abandon his training and compromise with his surroundings. He struggled to convince himself that happiness and success did not belong to boys like him.
Luckily, the mother Marucia stopped it all, and she endured the grief and ordered her son to return to the team and do what he wanted most, "Your father just wants you to be a professional footballer." Then you go for it. ”
Simply, Rivaldo's talent was so outstanding that he quickly gained the approval of Santa Cruz, but the team's training center was 15 kilometers from his home, and Rivaldo had no money to take a ride and could only travel on foot, which made his bow legs more obvious.
Despite being a member of Santa Cruz, Rivaldo's life did not improve, and his unstable performances made him a scapegoat for the club's defeat. Disrespected, ridiculed by fans, scorned by the manager and then sent away as a "head in" in a trade, Rivaldo was eventually forced to leave his dream. Years later, Santa Cruz president At the time, Kashero, said it was "the worst deal in the club's history".
It wasn't until 1993, on loan to Corinthians, that Rivaldo had a real chance, scoring 22 goals in 58 games, becoming the player of the season and wearing the yellow jersey of the Brazilian national team. A year later, Rivaldo, who moved to Palmeiras, was again the league's best player, and even so, Pereira still thought he was "too selfish" and "unreliable", and Rivaldo missed the 1994 World Cup.
Pereira may be right, in the 1996 Olympic men's semi-finals, Rivaldo missed a must-score opportunity, and Brazil was eliminated by Nigeria. "The game against Nigeria shocked everyone because people expected us to take home the gold medal. Unfortunately, it was a game full of surprises and everyone was sad, Rivaldo was the saddest and he received a lot of criticism. He was always a very personal player and had a lot of confidence in himself. Former teammate Luizao recalled.
When asked about it years later, Rivaldo was quite calm, "It was a painful memory, but it gave me the motivation to show that the criticism of me was unfair." ”
In 1998, Zagallo took Rivaldo to the World Cup, which seemed reasonable, because the "brick knife" at that time could already gain a foothold in europe's mainstream leagues.
After the Atlanta Olympics, Parma was interested in signing Rivaldo, but in the end the two sides failed to negotiate a contract, the Brazilian went to Spain and joined A Coruña, when the team held a welcoming ceremony for him, more than 7,000 players came to the scene, they hoped that Rivaldo would become Bebeto's successor.
Rivaldo spent only one year in La Coruña because it only took him one year to achieve great success, scoring 21 goals in 41 games and the always mediocre Lacco also finished third in La Liga. Scoring in a variety of ways in front of goal, headers and free-kicks, Rivaldo scored in a variety of ways, which made Barca pay him 4 billion pesetas (about £32 million).
What follows is a legend, from 1997 to 2002, the boy who was abandoned by the team because he was too weak, dominated European football with speed, strength, possession and endless technology. At Camp Nou, he scored 130 goals, won La Liga twice, lifted the Copa del Rey and in 1999 won the Ballon d'Or and World Footballer of the Year.
In the 2001 match against Valencia, Rivaldo scored a hat-trick. It was the last game of the season and Barca needed to win to qualify for the Champions League. His performance in this match was like a work of art, especially the barb break from outside the penalty area in the final moments.
"He's a star, always exemplary, very calm, focused on his job and trying to get better every day. Off the pitch, he was very shy but also considerate and considerate.
He was still humble when he won the Ballon d'Or, and he thanked us by giving each of us a small gold medal with the Golden Globe motif on it. Barca employees still remember Rivaldo to this day.
Rivaldo had even greater success in Brazil, scoring twice in the final in the 1999 Copa America and five goals at the 2002 World Cup in South Korea and Japan to help the team lift the Cup of Hercules again.
"I always say Rivaldo is the best, in that team, the player who helped me the most," Scolari said, "people sometimes forget the tactical aspect of that team." They only saw what happened in the final, but Rivaldo was the best team player. ”
After a brief stint with AC Milan, Rivaldo spent his career in greece, Uzbekistan, and Angola, where he did not retire until 2015. In 2008, Rivaldo bought Mogi Mirim, where he played as a child and made appearances with his son.
Rivaldo now lives in the United States, but he occasionally returns to Recife to relive childhood memories of poverty, unemployment and violence in Paulista. "As a kid from a poor family, I never imagined that I would one day be considered the best player in the world.
To be the world champion for Brazil, to play for a team like Barcelona, I really never thought about that. In Rivaldo's heart, still living with the 18-year-old, "My dream is just to become a professional player in Santa Cruz." That's enough for me. ”