“Here, I dance with my friends and I sleep on the floor…” Former footballer Adriano recounts his descent into hell and his return to his favela

He will have been the definition of a wasted talent. A real one. Recruited by Inter Milan in the early 2000s, when he had just discovered professional Football under the colors of Flamengo in Brazil, Adriano never managed to confirm over time all the promises placed in him. Now aged 42, the former player of the Selection recently spoke for The Players Tribune.

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“L'Imperatore” (the Emperor, Editor's note) discusses his career, his return to the Brazilian favelas, his career, and his relationship with alcohol. “I am the biggest waste in football,” says the man who has 48 appearances with the Brazilian selection. “I like this word, 'waste'. Not only because of its sound, but also because I am obsessed with wasting my life. I am fine like that, in frenetic waste” he regrets .

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A big problem with alcohol

Appearing in recent weeks in a daze in a video published on social networks, the former attacker nevertheless indicated that he did not take “drugs”, that he “did not like crime”, that he didn't “go clubbing”, but that alcohol continued to eat away at him. “I drink every day. […] I drink because it's not easy to be a promise gone into debt. And it's even worse at my age.” A relationship with alcohol that began very early, when he was still a teenager, he who also tragically lost his father before discovering the high level .

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Retired from the football fields since 2016 and one last dance in the United States after a failed return to Italy with Roma, Adriano chose to return to Vila Cruzeiro. “People didn't understand why I returned to the favela. It was neither for alcohol, nor for women and even less for drugs. It was for freedom. […] The only thing I look for in Vila Cruzeiro is peace. Here I walk barefoot and shirtless, just in shorts. I play dominoes, I sit on the sidewalk, I remember my childhood, I listen to music, I dance with my friends and I sleep on the ground,” confides the man with 150 career goals. Before concluding : “Here, I am really respected. This is my story. Vila Cruzeiro is not the best place in the world. Vila Cruzeiro is my place.”