This story is so rags-to-riches, it's ridiculous.
A boy is born in the slums of
Lisbon, the son of Cape Verdean immigrants. He's abandoned by his parents, and lives with his grandmother until age
12, when she places him in a church orphanage. There he plays a lot of soccer, and gets
pretty good. So good, in fact, that in
2009, he's chosen to play in the European Street Football Festival. In six matches, he scores forty goals. (Read that again.)
He gets picked up by an amateur Portuguese
team called Loures. After just a few
months, he moves up to a pro team called Estrela Amadora, a lowly
second division team. It's hardly an
impressive club, and they can't pay their bills. So just last spring, he's offered to a pro
team in the Netherlands, for FREE. And
the Dutch say no thanks; nobody's ever heard of this kid. So he get kicked up to Vitoria de Guimaraes, one
of Portugal's top teams. In the summer
of 2010, playing in rather meaningless pre-season games, the orphan scores five
goals in six games.
Which catches the eye of Carlos Queiroz. Who's that, you say? Only the coach of Portugal's national team. Somehow, while coaching this summer at the
World Cup in South Africa, Queiroz hears about the orphan boy with the magic
scoring touch. Queiroz reaches out to
his former boss: none other than Sir Alex Ferguson, manager of Manchester
United and perhaps the most successful, most famous football coach in the
world. Based on Queiroz' recommendation -
and having never even see the boy play - Ferguson makes his move. On August 11, just a few months into his pro
career and before he's ever played a single regular-season game, the boy from
the slums of Lisbon joins the greatest sports franchise on the planet. Oh, and the amount of his contract? 7.4 Million Pounds. (Read that again.)
And here's the best part: the boy's
given name is Tiago Manuel Dias Correia. But that doesn't fit on the back of a jersey, so he goes by the nickname
his older brother gave him long ago at the orphanage: "Bebé."
It means what it sounds like.
This past Wednesday night, with ManU leading 5-2 against Scunthorpe, Bebé came on as a substitute with 15 minutes remaining. The crowd held its breath. And who could blame them? He's the 7.4 Million Pound baby.
And now his rags-to-riches story really starts...
You can read previous installments of
the quick Sliver in our online archive. Just go here: http://archive.constantcontact.com/fs015/1103023679528/archive/1103033975377.html
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