The place where I started playing football was a dusty street, the pitch nothing more than a stretch of earth. I was seven years old and it was the only thing I knew how to do.
I grew up in Jardim Paineiras, a working-class neighbourhood on the outskirts of Diadema, a city just outside Sao Paulo. My older brother had been born when our parents still lived in a shack.
By the time I came along, things had improved slightly – we lived in a small brick house, but it was a very simple home, just about enough for the five of us. My sister slept in the same bed as my mother and father, and I shared a mattress with my brother. Luxury it definitely wasn’t.
