My God! I was snoring. Are you kidding me? I got out of bed and saw my name on the TV. Come on , man. Be serious. Living in the favela. How can you say that I was not touched by God? My story, it does not make any logical sense, even to me. How can you explain that? We win a free kick outside the box, and I step up to the ball. Hey, why not?
I take it. That big mean bastard! But I understood that he was pissed. He wanted to take it. Nobody messes with Seedorf. People ask me all the time about that free kick. How, how, how? How did you kick the ball that hard? I hit it with my left and God did the rest! Top corner. It just happened. That was the start of a love affair with Inter. Still, to this day, Inter is my club. I love many of the places I have played, but Inter is something special for me.
The Italian press? But Inter the club? The best, man. The song still gives me goosebumps when I remember how they used to sing it at San Siro. Che confusione. Un giocatore. Che tira bombe a mano. Siam Tutti in piedi. Damn, man. A favela guy like me? I had not even done much yet, and everyone was treating me like a king.
It was crazy. I mean my family. Brazilian style. My boys! The whole neighborhood got on that airplane. So the news got to the club president, Mr. Moratti the legend!! And Mr. Can you imagine, 44 Brazilians on tour in Italy? It was a scene, bro. It was party time. This is the reason why I will never say a bad word about Mr. Moratti, or about Inter. Every club should be run like that. He cared about me as a person. Now, I know what you are thinking.
Why did you leave us? I get this question every time I go back to Italy. You know, sometimes I think I am one of the most misunderstood footballers on the planet. They have the story all wrong. In the span of nine days, I went from the happiest day of my life, to the worst day of my life.
I went from heaven to hell. For real. July 25, The Copa America Final against Argentina. Every Brazilian remembers that game. They were starting shit with us, mocking us, trying to make us lose our heads so they could waste more time. Luis Fabiano wanted to punch everybody!
The rest is a poem, man. The ball came floating into the box. If you watch the video, I actually put my elbow up to hit somebody. But then, suddenly, the ball was at my feet. A gift from heaven. I thought, Oh!
Come here, you beautiful son of a bitch!! I just hit it with my left, as hard as I could. A kiss from the fat man to the Argentinians!!! We had only tied the game, but we knew that we broke them. We knew what would happen in the penalties, and it did. We were the champions. And Argentina were not. To beat Argentina like that, for my country, with my family watching Think about it.
The boy from the fucking favelas, man. How could I not think that God had reached his hand down from heaven to touch my life? Because no matter who you are — you can be at the top of the world, you can be The Emperor — but your life can change like…. Like that. August 4, Nine days later. I was back in Europe with Inter. I got a call from home. They told me my father had died. Heart attack. He loved the game, so I loved the game. It was that simple. It was my destiny. When I played football, I played for my family.
When I scored, I scored for my family. So when my father died, football was never the same. I got so depressed, man. I started drinking a lot. It had nothing to do with Inter. I just wanted to go home. To be honest with you, even though I scored a lot of goals in Serie A over those few years, and even though the fans really loved me, my joy was gone. It was my dad, you know? Not all injuries are physical, you understand?
I had just arrived a few days earlier and I joined the team for Madrid away. On 14 August I arrived at the Bernabeu. Italy was totally different at the time in a football sense.
Italy had the strongest league in football, and Adriano made 'a dream move', which didn't go according to plan. He barely played in his first stint at Inter and went on loan to Fiorentina for half a season. Fiorentina ended up relegated and broke. They couldn't afford him, but Parma could. Parma bought 50 percent of Adriano ownership, and the bulky Brazilian continued his career at Parma.
Adriano really rose to prominence at Parma , where he showed his biggest strengths. Tall, incredibly strong, with a fantastic left foot, Adriano scored 17 goals for Parma in that season.
He and Adrian Mutu another 'strange' player formed a formidable partnership as Parma impressed with their attacking play.
Inter did bring the player back, eventually. He had a lot better second stint at Inter, as he became the key striker for Nerazzurri. Years and were the peak of Adriano's career. He won Copa America with Brazil being the top goalscorer , he won Confederations Cup with Brazil again being the top goalscorer , while he also scored 28 goals for Inter. After those two years, everything went horribly wrong. Some predict that the main reason for Adriano's demise after that time was the death of Adriano's father , but I would disagree.
Cristiano Ronaldo's father also died when the player was relatively young, and he managed to "survive" the tragedy without a meltdown. I think the main reason was Adriano's unstable mental state.
It's true that his father passing started it all, but Adriano was bound to have this kind of troubles, sooner than later. After , Adriano's decline started. His form dropped considerably in , scoring ten goals less for Inter while having a disappointing World Cup campaign with Brazil. He had a brief loan at Sao Paulo, where he showed glimpses of his glorious form, but then return to Inter, where his poor form continued.
Adriano scored only 14 goals for Inter in the next three seasons , which was obviously not good enough for Inter.
Mourinho rightfully sold Adriano to Flamengo in , a place where he could jump-start his career by his own admission! He did have a fine season at Flamengo, where his 19 goals helped the club to the league title, but it didn't last.
Roma signed Adriano after that season finished. Adriano had a torrid time at Roma , making only 8 appearances for the club. Club terminated Adriano's contract after 7 months! His friends tell FFT that he could yet make a professional comeback — two years after his single outing for lower-league American side Miami United — although it seems that few reputable clubs are as confident.
Staying on the straight and narrow long-term will prove tricky for the striker whose mental state, according to close friends, is a long way from that of the days when he would mercilessly power his way past terrified defenders and blast home long-range scorchers. The confidence and power that he displayed so readily during his peak years as a player have been replaced by self-doubt and lethargy. One event more than any other transformed Adriano from Ronaldo's heir to a shell of a man who barely kicked a ball after his 30th birthday.
It was the death of his father. In Lima on July 25, , Adriano scored a dramatic stoppage-time equaliser in the Copa America final, with a powerful-yet-precise shot on the turn. Brazil beat Argentina in the subsequent penalty shootout, with The Emperor setting the tone by coolly stroking home their first spot-kick. There was only one man he wanted to pay tribute to after the match. Without him I am nothing. His father, Almir, had recently been suffering from ill health.
It hit the year-old forward like a freight train. He threw the phone down and started screaming. From that day on, [Inter chairman Massimo] Moratti and I decided to take him in like a brother and protect him.
In the immediate aftermath of that final, Brazil coach Carlos Alberto Parreira had seemed shocked by just how brilliantly Adriano had performed. My [Inter] coach, Roberto Mancini, and my team-mates noticed that I was hungover when I arrived for training. I slept in the medical department and Inter had to tell journalists that I had muscular pain. Are you aware that you could become the best player ever? Adriano was still struggling to refocus on his game when the biggest opportunity in his career rolled around two years later.
Just days before Brazil travelled to Germany for the World Cup — a competition for which they were favourites, thanks to a glittering array of talent that included Ronaldinho, Kaka and Adriano himself — he put on a shindig for his pals.
He was still mostly a shy, quiet boy, but to us he was a hero in the making. His Instagram account may show him surrounded by people all of the time, but he is alone.
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