I'd have won Ballon d'Or but football slipped through my fingers – I didn't want to earn so much while not performing
D'OR SLAMMED SHUT I'd have won Ballon d'Or but football slipped through my fingers – I didn't want to earn so much while not performing
FORMER Brazil star Adriano has opened up over his startling fall from grace, admitting he could have won the Ballon d'Or if not for his hasty decline as a footballer.
Adriano, 43, once had the world at his fingertips after bursting onto the scene with Flamengo in 2000.
Advertisement
3
Adriano reckons he could have won the Ballon d'Or if not for his sharp career nosedive
Credit: AP:Associated Press
3
The icon was once a household name and one of football's most feared strikers
Credit: AP
He became a household name when he joined Inter Milan four years later, becoming one of world football's most formidable strikers while winning three Serie A titles.
Adriano, whose son plays in Portugal, also achieved stardom with Brazil's national team by forming an incredible attack alongside Ronaldinho, Kaka and Ronaldo Nazario.
But following the 2006 World Cup, Adriano's form quickly declined and he began suffering numerous fitness problems due to his partying lifestyle.
Adriano later admitted that the death of his father in 2004 saw him enter a cycle of depression and alcohol abuse.
Advertisement
READ MORE IN FOOTBALL
FOOTBALL TRAGEDY Three football fans dead & at least 70 injured in stadium disaster
And his career was never the same again despite playing for the likes of Roma, Corinthians and boyhood club Flamengo once more.
Adriano, who retired in 2016, has since described himself as 'football's biggest waste.'
And now, the icon believes he would have 'won the Ballon d'Or with the mind I had today.'
He told Amazon Prime Video: 'I wasn't in a good place mentally. After my father died, football slipped through my fingers.
Advertisement
'I went out to avoid thinking and the next day I was worse. I didn't do what I did because I wanted to party or let loose; I did it because I had a heavy heart.'
Adriano also thanked Inter Milan for offering him professional help – which he did not accept at the time.
Brazil legend Adriano breaks down in tears during farewell match after late dad 'sends message' using AI
3
Adriano also starred for Brazil before retiring from football in 2016
Credit: AFP
He continued: 'They offered me admission to a specialised centre because I was depressed.
Advertisement
'But I didn't understand that I needed help. I thought what I was doing was normal, it was a big mistake.
'(Former Inter president Massimo Moratti) always offered me everything in his power to help me, but I didn't accept it. I made a mistake.'
Adriano also felt guilty at receiving huge wages while being unavailable to play, leading to his decision to quit Inter in 2009.
He added: 'I spoke with Moratti and told him I accepted any sanctions they might impose on me.
Advertisement
'I didn't want to continue earning a high salary without being able to perform. I didn't have the brains to continue.
'I've always said I could have done more but that wasn't the case. Things happened that held me back.'
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Herald Scotland
28 minutes ago
- The Herald Scotland
USMNT diversity is a positive. Data proves it
"Previous research, they found a negative impact, not because of the diversity itself but how to put the team together. When you merge several players from different countries with different language, you create a barrier that makes it, at some extent, difficult to perform," said Thadeu Gasparetto, author of a paper published earlier this month titled "Multicultural teams: Does national diversity associate with performance in professional soccer?" "More recent research is showing pretty much the opposite, where the diversity provides a set of different skills ... different codes that tends to be positive." With less than a year until the World Cup in the United States, Canada and Mexico, which U.S. Soccer officials hope will be as transformative for the game as the 1994 tournament was, the "golden generation" of the U.S. men's national team is struggling. To put it nicely. Most of their top players, led by Christian Pulisic, are playing in Europe. Several on top teams, no less. Their coach is Mauricio Pochettino, who took Tottenham to the Champions League final. Yet the USMNT skidded into the Concacaf Gold Cup on a four-game losing streak, its longest since 2007. Then team reached the quarterfinals of the tournament, but Sunday's game against Costa Rica will be the first real test. As players, fans and pundits look for answers, former USMNT player and pot stirrer extraordinaire Alexi Lalas blamed the team's diversity. In addition to players from across the United States, the USMNT -- like many other national teams -- has multiple players who were born or raised overseas. "I've argued that the homogeneous nature of some other countries and cultures, just in population in terms of the size, are much more manageable and there's a collective understanding and, more importantly, an agreement in, 'This is how we're going to play,'" said Lalas, who makes no secret of his willingness to be a right-wing media provocateur. "But getting 11 men to represent this great country of 350 million people and all be on the same page, that is very, very difficult." Except it's really not. And there is both data, and anecdotal evidence, to prove it. Gasparetto examined six professional leagues in Europe -- England, Belgium, Germany, Cyprus, Latvia and the Netherlands -- between the 2015-16 and 2020-21 seasons and found that each foreign player on a team correlated with a 0.42% increase in win percentage. "It's much more about how well or how qualified the players are rather than where he or she's from," Gasparetto said. His findings are similar to those in a study by Michel Beine, Silvia Peracchi and Skerdilajda Zanaj that looked at ancestral diversity and its impact on a national team's performance. "Ancestral diversity and performance: Evidence from football data," published in the Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization in September 2023, found ethnic diversity can lead to an additional goal scored per game. "The idea is, basically, that more genetic diversity is going to allow more complementary skills between players," Beine said. "Soccer is a game in which complementary skills is very important because you have different positions and these different positions, they require different type of skills. ... These complementarities, these different type of skills are going to be beneficial for the team." Look at France. Les Bleus won the men's World Cup in 2018 and were runners-up in 2022 with a team that was a melting pot. In addition to players whose parents and grandparents and great-grandparents and -- you get the idea -- were born in France, about half the team was born in Africa or the French Caribbean, or had parents who were. England, much to the country's consternation, endured decades of frustration after winning the World Cup in 1966. But it has reached the final at the last two European Championship and got to the semifinals of the 2018 World Cup with a multiracial team. Belgium had its best finish ever at the World Cup in 2018, third place, with a team that reflected the influence of immigration to that country in the 1950s and 1960s. Conversely, teams that are homogenous -- Iceland, for example, or Japan -- don't fare as well. "This mixing, in terms of skills, in terms of genetic endowment, we show in the statistical analysis that, over time, countries benefited from immigration flows and diverse immigration flows. ... They improved their soccer performances," Beine said. "On the contrary, you have countries who had very little immigration flows and who have kept quite a homogeneous population ... maybe they have less benefited from this." Soccer is a global game -- and not only because it's played everywhere in the world. Players routinely move from country to country in their club careers, and that is likely to have far more influence than the country in which they were born or the neighborhood in which they grew up. Lionel Messi was born in Argentina, moved to Spain at 13 and spent two decades at Barcelona before going to France to play for Paris Saint-Germain. Now he's in the United States, playing for Inter Miami. Do you really think him being from Rosario has more of an impact on Argentina's national team than what he learned at Barcelona? "The evidence is very clear that diversity is something that can be beneficial. And it is a little bit overlooked by people," Beine said. "I think that sometimes people are not looking at the evidence. Or they are closing their eyes on what is really obvious." And that is that. The USMNT, much like the country it represents, is better for its diversity. Follow USA TODAY Sports columnist Nancy Armour on social media @nrarmour.
The Guardian
39 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Harry Kane sinks Flamengo to set up Bayern Munich's Club World Cup tie with PSG
A World Cup is a better place for the Brazilians, but this one has lost two in 24 hours. The day after Botafogo fell to Palmerias, Flamengo departed too, cut down by Harry Kane. That sea of red and black will be missed and their team will too: the side who beat Chelsea showed that was not by chance, as they made a game of this one, scoring twice at the Hard Rock Stadium, their fans banging drums and their coach declaring his pride at how they had played. But it was Bayern Munich who progressed. 'It is about moments and we took our moments very well,' the England captain said. 'We stayed calm, and scored our goals at the right time.' He scored two of them, finally securing a victory when he scored his second with quarter of an hour left, a goal which, in his own words, 'eased the last 10 minutes' of an afternoon that had been far from easy. His brace, a Leon Goretzka strike and an Erick Pulgar own goal saw it finish 4-2, setting up a meeting with Paris Saint-Germain in the last eight. For Flamengo there was a noisy farewell and as they wound their way down the ramps at the end, songs echoed off the stands. Filipe Luís, the coach, said that they they had in the end been beaten by a 'superior team', a 'real colossus' but that they had played their way. Their way was good too, good enough that they may feel that justice was not entirely done and reflect on the part they played in their own downfall, even if Luís insisted that the errors that proved decisive in the end were forced by an opponent that is 'absolutely elite'. They racked up more shots than Bayern, yet also slipped 2-0 and 3-1 down in the first half and, ultimately left too much to do. When Kane added the fourth, it was done. The first of Bayern's four came after just six minutes and two more followed before the break, aided by an apparent nervousness about their opponents when pressure was applied and a willingness to take risks playing out. Agustín Rossi had already been forced to backpedal to reach an inswinging corner, seen a clearance hit Pulgar to set up a Joshua Kimmich shot, and gratefully watched a punch away hit a black balloon rather than setting up another dangerous delivery when they conceded an own goal opener. Jumping by Goretzka, the hint of a hand in his back, Gonzalo Plata succeeded only in deflecting the ball off the top of his head and into the net. Flamengo responded fast, Plata escaping up the right where they advanced often and delivering a cross from which Giorgian de Arrascaeta's header flew just past the post. There was an aggressiveness and determination to Flamengo that went with the noise their supporters brought and underlined that this would be a proper game. It was, too, even if Bayern were soon two up when Kane took advantage of Dayot Upamecano's steal, turned and hit a 25-yard shot that flew in off the post, a deflection taking it away from Rossi. There had been fortune in that and Flamengo certainly would have been entitled to feel unlucky to trail by two then and even more so a moment later when Manuel Neuer made an extraordinary save from Luiz Araújo, flashing out a strong right hand that had he and Kimmich celebrating. Next Leo Pereira struck wide. And not long after that, Araújo superbly controlled somewhere up near his neck, spun and volleyed wide. When Gerson belted a shot first time screeching right through Neuer's hands to make it 2-1 on half an hour, Flamengo had deserved it. The problem for Luis's side were those moments Kane mentioned. Within five minutes, Bayern had scored again, although another poor clearance set it up. It came to Goretzka, lurking outside the area. He controlled on his chest, took one touch and then, despite the distance, opened up his body to disguise the direction of the shot and calmly yet firmly side-footed into the corner. Sign up to Football Daily Kick off your evenings with the Guardian's take on the world of football after newsletter promotion Flamengo kept coming, and got back in it early in the second half when Michael Olise blocked a cross with his arm to concede. A hop, a pause, and without a look Jorginho sent Neuer the wrong way, side-footing his penalty into the corner. Soon Bruno Henrique escaped behind the Bayern defence, but couldn't guide his shot on target. The Brazilians behind the goal sensed an opportunity – 'the fans are a big part of it,' Kane said after – and roared their team on but then came another of those moments, another error ruthlessly exposed. Dribbling out from deep, Araújo just about escaped the first challenge but couldn't escape the second. Konrad Laimer won the ball, Kimmich gave it to Kane and that was only going to end one way, the finish so clean, the job done his way.
Daily Mirror
an hour ago
- Daily Mirror
Jack Grealish happy to bide his time with clear goal in mind for new season
Jack Grealish appears set to leave Manchester City this summer but a move away from the Etihad is proving to be more difficult than first thought for the England winger despite huge interest Jack Grealish is happy to play a waiting game regarding his future despite Pep Guardiola telling him to leave. Grealish appears to have little future at Manchester City having dropped down the pecking order at the Etihad Stadium. The situation for the England winger then got even worse after he was axed entirely for City's squad for the Club World Cup in America. A number of clubs have expressed an interest in potentially rescuing him including Napoli, Everton and Newcastle. But Grealish's £300k-per-week wages have proven to be a massive stumbling block, with none of those clubs able to afford that pay packet. One solution would be for City to massively subsidise Grealish's wages for any club that signs him. But as it stands, it appears that he is in no rush to find his next club. According to The Sun, Grealish is happy to bide his time and would be willing to wait for options as the transfer window progresses. City remain on Club World Cup duty with pre-season fixtures having been shelved as a result of the tournament. Grealish has time to consider options but will have to think carefully as he targets a place in England's World Cup squad this time next year. Guardiola recently opened up on discussions he held with Grealish regarding his future. He said: 'It was a conversation between him and the club and they decide. Jack is an exceptional player, the only reason why he didn't play last season is of course my decisions, and we decide that he has to play - and the club was honest, he was honest. 'We decide the best is that he has a place that he can feel he can play and come back to be the player that he was in the year of the treble or all his career at Aston Villa; without him it would have been impossible or more difficult to achieve the treble. 'The fact is the last two seasons he hasn't played much minutes and he has to come back to play and get the butterflies back in his stomach that he can play every three days and show again the quality that he has.' Where should Grealish go next? Share your thoughts in the comments below Grealish is not the only Man City star who has a decision to make on an exit. Kyle Walker is also in a similar situation following his loan spell at AC Milan. Asked for an update on the duo, Guardiola replied: 'I don't have any news, it's the same for Jack. Regarding the links, I don't know. You have to ask.' Join our new WhatsApp community and receive your daily dose of Mirror Football content. We also treat our community members to special offers, promotions, and adverts from us and our partners. If you don't like our community, you can check out any time you like. If you're curious, you can read our Privacy Notice.
