Adriano told his story in a poignant autobiography in which he definitively explained the reasons for his choices. Always accomplished by coming to terms with one’s demons: “I tried, but everyone criticized me… I couldn’t take it anymore.” The addiction to alcohol, the problems at Inter away from home, the drama of the father killed by a bullet. And his life today in the favela: “This is my place, only here I feel truly free”
Adriano he tells his story, with an open heart, with a biography with which he wanted to definitively explain the reasons for his life choices, often criticized and misunderstood, a few days after some photos and videos that portrayed him in the favela of Vila Cruzeiro, the very poor neighborhood Brazilian where he was born and where he has returned now. A poignant story in which the Brazilian Emperor retraced his sporting career, full of demons against which he always lost, accepting his own bitter fate with which he has finally learned to live: “I know what it means to be a promise and above all a failed promise. The biggest waste in the world of football? Me.”
Faced with the many new speculations that have brought him back to the front pages of sporting and non-sporting newspapers, Adriano once again said enough. Enough like when he decided to roll up his sleeves and lend a hand to his mother after his father died following a head wound caused by a stray bullet; enough like when he left the Eldorado of Serie A due to homesickness; enough like when, hanging his shoes on the wall, he left a life of comfort and fame to return to his favela, Vila Cruzeiro where he still lives happily. Thus, in a heartbreaking letter he explained to the world that criticizes him the reason for his choices, digging inside himself, recognizing the demons he has always fought against and in front of which he has always lost, but without ever giving up.
Adriano’s alcohol addiction: “I drink every other day, but also on other days”
The first tragedy that Adriano learned to live with over the years was that of alcohol addiction. A problem that comes from afar, when he started drinking at a party as a child. His father scolded him, but the sudden disappearance of his parent – hit in the head by a bullet which condemned him to continuous epileptic seizures until his death – made everything worse: “My father’s death changed my life forever. Even today it is a problem that I have not yet been able to solve: I grew up living with its crises and with my mother who took on everything. And I started drinking: how can someone like me drink almost every day? I don’t like opening myself up to others” he writes in his latest autobiography “Adriano, my greatest fear”. “Yes, I drink every other day… and on the others too. It’s not easy knowing that you are a promise that will remain in debt forever”
Adriano today lives the life he wanted away from money: videos of his days in the favela
Football, curse and delight for Adriano: “I was the biggest waste”
A promising footballer, who reached the pinnacle of fame and notoriety far from home, from Brazil which honored him in the Hall of Fame of the greatest of all time. Precisely in Italy in his parable at Inter, the team that invested in him and which in its own way also tried to help him in his moments of greatest fragility. “I tried to do what they wanted. I negotiated with Roberto Mancini and I also tried a lot with José Mourinho. I cried on the shoulder of Moratti, but I couldn’t do what they asked of me. I stayed well for a few weeks, avoided alcohol, trained like a horse, but there was always a relapse. Over and over… everyone criticized me. I couldn’t take it anymore. Do you know what it means to be a promise? I know it and above all I know what it means to be a broken promise. The biggest waste in football? That’s me, I like that word: waste“.
Adriano’s fragility: “I said goodbye to Seedorf, drank a vodka and fainted”
Among the many memories, between bitterness and regret, Adriano underlines his fragility with an unpublished anecdote for many, at the time of his stay at Inter during the Christmas period: “Seedorf invited me to his house, I said goodbye quickly and went back to my apartment. I called home. «Hi mom. Merry Christmas», I said. I could hear the loud sound of the drums beating and reminding me of the times when we were kids: I started crying right away. I was devastated. I got a bottle of vodka and drank all that shit myself. I filled myself with vodka and cried all night. I passed out on the couch because I drank too much and I cried.”
Favela life, Adriano explains: “Only here am I truly free”
From football honors to the “escape” that lasted a lifetime and which finally seems to be over now that Adriano lives permanently in Vila Cruzeiro, his favela. Not caring about what you read or say around: “Once a raid was even organized with the police to come and recover me, they thought I had been kidnapped. The press went crazy, I came here and disappeared, no one knew where I was anymore while I was here among my people, my streets, the my childhood memories and dreams. When I’m here I’m free, I’m here for my freedom: I walk barefoot and without a shirt, only in shorts, sit on the sidewalk, remember stories from my childhood, listen to music, dance with my friends and sleep on the floor. In each of these alleys I see my father again. It may not be the best place in the world but this is my place.”
