Adriano Leite Ribeiro was born on the 17th of February 1982 in Rio de Janeiro’s notorious Vila Cruzeiro favela in Brazil, an uncompromising environment riddled with crime, violence and corruption. He grew up in poverty with only the basic necessities to survive, but at the age of seven, he joined Flamengo's academy ranks, after his family members had pooled their money together for him to attend the school in Gavea. He eventually graduated to Flamengo's senior squad at the tender age of 16 and made his team debut on the 2nd of February 2000, in a match against Botafogo. He found the net nine times in his breakthrough 2000-01 campaign, while also becoming one of Brazil's youngest-ever national team debutants at 18, and scored three in his first five Brazilian Serie A appearances at the start of the following season. By that stage, Inter had already identified him as their next big superstar when he announced himself to Nerazzurri supporters in his very first game. This was a glorified pre-season friendly against Real Madrid at Santiago Bernabeu. Introduced to the action as a second-half substitute, he showed no signs of nerves, and when Inter won a dangerous free-kick right on the edge of the box, he wasted no time in putting himself forward to take it. Taking a long run-up he smashed an unstoppable shot into the top corner past the helpless Iker Casillas. The special strike, which he claimed to have hit at a world-record speed of 105mph, sealed a 2-1 victory for Inter and his overall performance made a huge impression on club captain Javier Zanetti. The Argentine told reporters after the game, "I said to myself: 'This is the new Ronaldo'." However he was made to wait for his big chance at Inter, who decided his development would be best served by a loan spell. Fiorentina snapped him up for the second half of the 2001-02 season, and he hit six goals in his first 15 games for La Viola, but Inter opted against bringing him back. Fiorentina agreed a two-year co-ownership deal with Parma that summer, and he soon began living up to his billing as Ronaldo's heir at the Ennio Tardini Stadium. Over the next two seasons, after racking up 23 goals in 37 Serie A games for Parma, forming a deadly partnership with Adrian Mutu along the way, Inter realised they'd made a mistake letting him go and moved quickly to re-sign him for €23 million in January 2004 on a four-year contract. Here he was unstoppable towards the back end of the club's 2003-04 season as he scored nine goals in 16 Serie A appearances and he effectively sealed the three points against Empoli with a stunning individual goal 20 minutes from time, bamboozling the goalkeeper with a brilliant dummy as he rolled the ball into the empty net. He was mobbed by his Inter colleagues who knew they'd witnessed something extraordinary, and so did the players on the opposite side. This was the day that the 'Emperor of Milan' was born, and former Empoli defender Emilson Cribari remembers it vividly. "At his peak, he is alongside Ronaldo as the most difficult player to stop on the pitch," Cribari told ESPN in 2022. "There's that famous photo of him, celebrating without his shirt off in the game that granted him the nickname L'Imperatore ("the Emperor") ....It was I who was marking him. He scored a golaço against us. That day I saw all his power and quality." Having returned to the San Siro in January 2004 he scored a total of 12 goals in the rest of 2003–04 season. From the 11th of July 2004 through to the 29th of June 2005, Adriano was in peak form, scoring 42 goals in both domestic and international competitions and he finished within the top 10 of the Ballon d'Or in 2004 and 2005 and was also a three-time winner of Bidone d'Oro award. He led Brazil to the 2004 Copa America receiving the Golden Boot as the competition's leading scorer with seven goals, firmly establishing himself as one of the top strikers in Europe. He also won the 2005 FIFA Confederations Cup with Brazil, receiving the Golden Boot Award as the competition's leading scorer with five goals. The Brazilian was now tipped to become one of the greats, but he ultimately succumbed to the pressures of football fame and is considered the ultimate cult hero for a certain generation of football fans; Adriano was a special case. There had never been a striker who inspired fear in his fellow man quite like the 6'2 titan, strong, blisteringly quick and technically brilliant, with a cannon for a left foot. Even Swedish maverick Zlatan Ibrahimovic was left completely in awe of his quality in the prime years of his career. "He could shoot from every angle, nobody could tackle him, nobody could take the ball, he was a pure animal," the former Inter striker told Sport Bible in 2020.
That 2005 season was to be was the finest year in Adriano’s career as he was never able to replicate that form, a large part down to the tragic death of his father, who died from a sudden heart attack. Adriano has confessed that he was terrified by the thought of becoming the man of the family. In a moving article for the Players' Tribune, he described how that effectively ended his career. "After that day, my love for football was never the same," Adriano explained of the day he got that awful phone call while in Milan. He continued: "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 was across the ocean in Italy, away from my family, and I just couldn't cope with it. I got so depressed, man. I started drinking a lot. I didn't really want to train. It had nothing to do with Inter. I just wanted to go home." Javier Zanetti, who played with him at Inter recalls, "When he had the phone call about the death of his father, we were in the room. He thumped the phone and began screaming in a way that one can't imagine. It still shivers me today. From that day, Massimo Moratti and I treated him as a younger brother. He continued to play football, scoring and dedicating his goals to his father by pointing to the sky. But after that phone call, nothing was the same as before."
A career that had promised so much slowly peetered out, and following many loan moves, at the age of just 27, he retired, looking a broken man, and moved back to Vila Cruzeiro to be with the surroundings and people he loved.
see also :- http://www.thefootballvoice.com/2024/10/footballs-nearly-men-ganso.html
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