I found myself in shock when I remembered how much I appreciated Adriano, but unfortunately, he is a victim of a difficult struggle. Here is a slice of what he’s had to go through and still be a wonderful talent at the same time.A player, who despite having won four scudettos, a FIFA Confederations Cup and a Copa América, he also has the most “wins” of the Bidone d’Oro award, or the “Golden Bin” given to the worst player of the year in the Italian Serie A. This is a player who in 2003 was apart of a lethal combination up front with Adrian Mutu, how retro is that? He was also repurchased by Inter Milan in 2004 for a total of €23.4 million and scored 15 times in 16 appearances in that season. So how can he be deemed a bad player?
He then went onto score a total of 40 goals in all competitions in the 2005-2006 season and was rewarded with a contract extension to see him through to 2010 at Inter Milan, unfortunately, this is where he seemed to spiral massively out of control. He has been reported to have missed numerous training sessions due to him out partying the previous night and was dropped by the Brazilian national team under Dunga because he had lost sight of football and was darkened by other things.
It’s a sad state of affairs because this isn’t the bottom for Adriano, nicknamed the “Emperor”. He then returned to his home country after falling out of favour at Inter under Roberto Mancini on a loan deal and in 2007 joined Flamengo, after he was sent on unpaid leave back to Brazil for the second time in a year and a half to battle his weight gain an poor form, that is. Technical director of Inter Milan at the time Marco Branca stated he wanted the emperor to return to Inter but had “put on weight and lost form after his fathers death” which leaves a bitter taste in the mouth.
I, personally, can’t understand why football is so far behind in sports psychology. Other athletes wouldn’t go near their sport if they didn’t feel right about themselves in that way and in football, they have awards given out to a person who is clearly affected mentally in his life and is down a dark pathway to celebrate how “bad” he is. There is a lot of rumours surrounding Adriano, but it genuinely upsets me writing this as it just seems in humane the stuff he has been through, so I implore you to go check out the videos of him scoring goals, because he could of been consistently world class, but never got the help he deserved.
