₦airaland Forum

The family life of a Brazilian footballer is not always easy. There is a saying that we have 200 million football coaches in Brazil, and I can confirm that this is true.

I can also confirm that two of these coaches are my twin daughters.

All of my family members believe that they know the most about football. And they’re all pretty sure that the one who knows the least is me! When I get to the Chelsea dressing room after a game, they will have left a bunch of voice messages on my phone. They watch all my games, and they always give me advice. Often I’ll find that they have left me messages during the first half, while I was running around on the pitch.

The first message is usually from my father, Severino.

“Son, I’m watching the game here … you have to move more into the centre!”

Then I’ll have one from my wife, Vanessa.

“Honey, why don’t you cross the ball more often?”

And then my twin daughters, Manuella and Valentina.

“Daddy! If you want to score, you have to shoot!”

Manuella and Valentina are always the most worried. If I do not score, they’ll get concerned. If a player fouls me and I fall to the ground, they’ll ask if I’m okay.

“Daddy, why did that man kick you?”

I laugh about how engaged they are. But I also know they are trying to help. The feedback is always positive, every message sent with love.


Courtesy of Willian
Without a doubt, becoming a father is the best thing that can happen to you. I used to think just about football, but when you have children your priorities change, because they need your love and attention. As a footballer, they help me keep balance in my life.

Over the last few years I have been thinking a lot about these things — the things that are more important than football. I am not just talking about my role as a father, but as an evangelical Christian. I go to church here in London, and I feel great whenever I’m there, listening to the Word, saying my prayers. I have a group at church who I consider my friends.

But I do not like to talk too much to people about religion. Why? Because my life is an open book. For sure, there is a way of sending a message by preaching the gospel. But sometimes you can do the same with your actions and attitude. You can set an example. If you have the happiness and the discipline to your life that comes from your faith in God, people will notice that you have something special, you know? So you don’t have to put it in another person’s head that they should accept Jesus. You can show it through who you are, how you treat people, how you handle things.

And that is what I try to do on a daily basis.

Some people think that footballers just want to make money, party, and chase women. Of course, everyone can do whatever they want. The important thing about being a Christian is knowing that you are free. Sure, you can go to a club and party all night. But should you? When you know the word of God, it doesn’t make sense. And if you have that clarity, that knowledge of what is right and what is wrong, your life will be better.

There are many footballers who are evangelical Christians, not just in Brazil but also here in England. Roberto Firmino was baptised in a swimming pool a few weeks ago. Alisson was there. David Luiz has been a friend of mine since childhood. He was baptised when he played in Paris. Lucas Moura invited me to his home the other day for pizza. I think this is how it should be. On the pitch we all defend our teams. Outside it we are all friends.

I sincerely believe that I have God to thank for becoming a professional footballer. God has a purpose in life for each person, and for me I think it was to play football. When I look back I can recognise several moments when my career could have gone off the rails.

And yet for some reason, it never did.

For instance, when I was two years old I broke my foot. I was playing football in the streets of my hometown, Ribeirão Pires, a quiet city outside São Paulo, when I kicked a ball that was too hard for me. My mother says that I kept on walking normally, only to wake up the next day unable to put my foot on the ground. Thankfully it healed, and when I was nine I was able to join Corinthians, one of the biggest clubs in Brazil, and the team my family and my neighbourhood supported.

So many things went in my favour. Confidence is crucial for all players, and for whatever reason I never had a doubt that I was going to become a professional. The road to the top is long, you know? Millions of Brazilian kids chase the same dream. Some are talented but lose motivation. Some suffer serious injuries. Others begin to doubt. I could have thought, Oh, will this actually work? But I never did.


Courtesy of Willian

I was also lucky that I had my father. When I was 15 he was the one who told me that if I really wanted to become a professional, I would have to choose between football and futsal, which I had been playing since I was four. He helped me keep my feet on the ground. If you are good at football, agents begin to show interest in you very quickly. I also had the ego boost of playing for the youth national teams. If you are not careful, you might start thinking that you have made it before you actually have. But my father never let me think I was anything special.

We knew the competition was great. There is a saying that you have to kill a lion and a half a day, because everyone else is killing at least one. My father always told me that.

And then, soon after I had made the Corinthians first team, I got a big opportunity. In August 2007, when I was 19, I got an offer from Shakhtar Donetsk. As you know, every player in Brazil dreams of playing in Europe, especially for one of the big clubs. I must admit that I had not planned to leave Brazil so early, and I had certainly not envisaged a future in Ukraine. But Corinthians really needed to sell me at that moment, and Shakhtar really wanted me. So my father and I went there to check things out.

The people from Shakhtar were very convincing. When our flight landed in France they had a private jet waiting for us. I was like, Damn, I have never flown a private jet before. All we knew about Donetsk was that it was supposed to be a cold place. But it was summer, and really, really warm. I thought, Surely the winters cannot get that cold…. Then I met the coach, Mircea Lucescu, and some of the players, including Fernandinho, Luiz Adriano and Ilsinho, who were all Brazilians. The facilities looked good. Finally my father and I concluded that this could be a great start for me in Europe. And so I decided to join Shakhtar.

Of course, when winter finally came it was difficult. The cold, the snow … I had never experienced anything like that. But thank God everything went well. I had the support of my teammates, especially the Brazilians, including Brandão and Jádson. I adapted well. I even learned Russian! In the beginning I had to use a translator, but slowly I picked up words and phrases, and eventually I was able to understand it.


Sam Robles/The Players' Tribune
Ukraine was also where I became an evangelical Christian. I had grown up going to a Catholic church with my parents every Sunday. But when I was in Ukraine, I felt that I began to get closer to what following God really meant. I began to spend more time with Jádson and Fernandinho. They would host services at their homes, where we would study the Bible together. They were almost like Bible workshops. That was when I began to fully understand what the Bible said, and what was really right and what was really wrong. And so I accepted Jesus Christ as my only saviour. My wife and I were baptised there — in a bathtub.

At the same time I began to spend more of my spare time with my agent. He lived in London, and on one occasion I went with him to watch a game at Stamford Bridge. That was when I began following Chelsea and the Premier League. I was blown away. I loved the atmosphere. I fell in love with the city. I can’t quite explain what London has, but it has something … something special.

I spent 5½ years at Shakhtar, working as hard as I could. In January 2013 I moved to Anzhi Makhachkala, in Russia. But six months later they were in financial trouble and allowed me to find another club. And so began weeks of negotiations. Many clubs wanted me, but I wanted to go to Chelsea. And in the end, thank God, I was able to fulfill my dream. I can still remember visiting the club, seeing the facilities, meeting David Luiz in the dressing room. I was so happy. God seems to have heard what I wanted and said, “This is where he will go.”

Since I joined Chelsea, a lot has happened that has shaped my character. The first year was disappointing, because we were fighting for the title but finished third. We also made the Champions League semifinals, drawing away in the first leg against Atlético Madrid. We were 1–0 up at home in the second leg, and I remember thinking, Damn, I have never been in a Champions League final, and now we’re going there! And then Atlético turned the game around and won 3–1. That was frustrating. But the toughest period by far was when we became Premier League champions with Antonio Conte in 2016–17. I sat on the bench a lot that season, but worse, I lost my mother. She was battling cancer, and there just seemed to be so little I could do about it. In that period I received a lot of support from my father and my wife. It was painful, but I learned a lot. I matured. And I got even closer to God.

Of course, I have also had many happy moments at Chelsea. The fans have treated me well from Day One. When they sing my name, I feel happy and proud. They give me confidence, and I have always tried to return their love for me on the pitch.

Not by talking, but by setting an example with my actions. As always.

The happiest moments are when you win a league title, because you spend an entire season fighting for it. I will never forget my first one at Chelsea, which we won under José Mourinho in 2015. The party on the pitch and in the dressing room was incredible. We actually won it with three league games still to play, and Mourinho had promised us four days off each week if we won the title. So each week for the rest of the season I would train one day, play a game, and then spend four days with my family on holiday.

People ask me about the best coaches I have had. For sure, Mourinho is one of them. We had a special relationship. He demanded a lot, so there were some conflicts, but that’s normal. He would challenge me and call out my mistakes, but if I had played well he would also say something like, “Today you killed it.” I loved his man management, how he organised training, how he spoke in meetings. I learned a lot from him. Even after he left Chelsea he spoke well of me. We are still friends. Sometimes we exchange messages. When he was at Manchester United he wanted me to go there. And the way in which he made that clear was always respectful.

I also feel very good playing for Frank Lampard. It was a privilege to play with him — you all know how great a player he was — and as a coach I feel that he likes me a lot. I like him a lot, too. I really enjoy the way he is doing things. He cares about his players. His man management is excellent.


Glyn Kirk/AFP/Getty Images

I have played for Chelsea for more than six years now, and I can honestly say that I am very happy here. If you ask my wife if she wants to leave London, she’ll say no. My daughters feel the same way. Of course, Brazil is Brazil, right? It’s our home, our culture. We always feel good when we go there on holiday and see family and friends. But London is my second home.

In fact, I recently passed a British citizenship test. Man, it was hard. It’s British history in a nutshell: the 1500s, the 1600s, wars, battles, great leaders, stuff like that. Some questions are so difficult that not even some of my British friends knew the answers! I bought this handbook called Life in the UK Test, which covers everything in the exam. I don’t know how many hours I spent reading it. I also downloaded a phone app with mock tests.

As it turned out, I failed on my first two attempts, but got it on the third. I am now a British citizen!

So London is where I want to stay. This is where I have my family, my church. I want my daughters to grow up here. Whenever I get back to the dressing room, I want to keep seeing their messages. I want to keep hearing their love and encouragement.

They don’t just remind me to shoot. They also remind me that, no matter what I win as a footballer, my most important trophy will always be my family.

https://www.theplayerstribune.com/en-us/articles/willian-borges-chelsea

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What about Sonekan? Cant he be considered as one of them?

holocron:
This should be on front-page. Mods!

I agree

Someone may need this right now....

Never lose hope!

Be Grafeful! Be Patient! Be Strong!

RisenPhoenix:
Women don't want their husband's next wife to eat out of the inheritance when they die so they write their siblings or parents as next of kin. Men don't want their children to suffer so they write their children's mothers as next of kin.

Na soo oo... ..

Ishilove:
The owner is Dakoru Tamuno, aka Dontammy.

You are jobless. Get busy

Too much sense dey your head..aswear

OP... continue disturbing people's peace shey o gbo

The below caption trigger the above question.

It is not only the Nigerian embassies even the agencies around the world.

I was at NIN approved registration center in Houston Texas few weeks back. Guess what? They told me their system was down. In the US?

I went to the second approved agent and their office was locked. I met another lady there who was frustrated and really lamenting about the whole thing.

Fortunately, the 3rd and the last approved location happens to be a VFS office - Russian embassy. That was where I got the registration done.

The other 2 agents are Nigerian companies

I face this everytime with my daughter but usually I use the gent since I'm an adult.

We get dem type plenty for this our naija

The genetic makeup of a 12-year-old Angolan boy is now disputed by experts after his deceased mother allegedly told him on the deathbed that he is the offspring of a human-chimpanzee love affair, the Gazeta Nacional has reported.

The story made national headlines and has unleashed an outpour of generosity towards Augusto Dembo, 12, who now lives with his uncle and aunt in the capital city of Luanda.

Although the young boy has become an instant celebrity, many experts dispute the claim that he is the product of the sexual intercourse between a human and a chimpanzee.

“Sexual relationships between humans and chimpanzees are fairly common in the region but this is the first time a pregnancy is officially reported,” said Dr. António Mendes of the Hospital Municipal do Luena.

Angola President João Lourenço has already nicknamed the boy the “Angolan Miracle Child” as well as praising the young man as a “mational treasure,” “a sign from God” and a “testament to the majesty and greatness of the Republic of Angola.”

“This discovery could even challenge the basic foundations of modern science,” said the current Minister of Science and Technology, Maria Cândida Teixeira.

A spokesperson from the Parc national de Cameia commented on the news by saying that the park’s management sincerely regret the loss of Anita Dembo, frowning at “any inappropriate or sexual acts with any animals in the park.”

“Any sexual interaction between employees or visitors of the park with animals is not encouraged behavior under current park guidelines,” a spokesman for Parc national de Cameia told reporters.

The child’s mother, Anita Dembo, allegedly entertained an affair with a chimpanzee that endured for many years during her employment at the Parc national de Cameia where she has worked as a conservation officer.

● World News Daily Report

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izzou:


Its already late to read this article.

Too late brah

Continuing on the illusion that someone can dropout from a university, in Nigeria, and then become a legend, under the lame excuses that it worked for Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates. I want to make it clear that both Mark and Bill continued their “educations” but outside the university system.

In this discussion, the most important thing to note is that Life is about accumulating capabilities. Accumulating those capabilities does not necessarily have to be in universities. The Igbo traders of Arochukwu, Nnewi and Ohafia have shown that people can create massive wealth even without going to school. Yet, in that process, one thing is clear: there is the generation and accumulation of knowledge which the apprentice-students acquire over more than a decade from their masters. That they did that in a shop in Aba or Lagos does not diminish the fact that they were “educated” or trained.

In America, they have an institutionalized apprenticeship system. A small segment of that system is the Executive Coach. These are highly experienced and capable men and women who are paid to become like private professors and mentors to busy people.

When I became a TED Fellow, TED gave me a coach. The man spoke with me many times in a week and helped in shaping my ability to get things done. He kept me on track, challenging me to speak better, and pushing me to fix many issues he felt I needed to deal with in order to be a better person in my projects. He did not spare my presentation styles: he worked hard on many nexus of my skills. He might have been paid $250 – $300 per hour by the billionaire who funded it through TED for the Fellows.

It was a transformation – I became a better communicator and quickly found it easier to just talk. The next few months, TED assigned another person who focused on fixing things related to planning and thinking big. He wanted me to become a big thinker and focusing on the big picture at early phases of projects.

People, these people are retired professors, company executives and extremely capable people who typically take you, look at your weaknesses and find ways to fix them in weeks. They are super-mentors because if you follow their directions, you will get results.

Mark Zuckerberg had many private coaches in Facebook. He had left Harvard as a “dropout” but he had Harvard-type professors as “private professors”. The same applied to most of those young men you read about that left school and built empires. In short, even those with degrees, do hire these coaches.

If a kid drops out from the University of Lagos, will he get his own private professor? The Igbo apprenticeship program makes a case that you do not need university education to thrive. But in that system, there is deep knowledge passed from one person to another. Yes, in all cases, knowledge must be passed, one way or the other.

The key thing is to examine the reason for dropping out: Bill and Mark left to go and scale big ideas, and they had with them business and executive coaches working with them at those early stages. It was not because they were finding school hard or they did not like Calculus. They went to acquire, scale, and build massive knowledge. They went to “schools” but those schools were enterprises, and worked with some of the best in the world. The VCs who funded them are just like mentors and professors.

In a way, they replaced mass-training professors in Harvard with private Harvard-quality professors. If you check very well, they got better deals because they could afford them. You cannot have a private Harvard professor and still claim you dropped out!

Now, you can see why a kid in Nigeria must stay in school and stop touting how Mark and Bill dropped out to build Facebook and Microsoft respectively.

https://www.tekedia.com/the-mirage-of-lagos-dropouts-mark-zuckerberg-and-bill-gates/

"I tried to keep my peace over this attack on Nigerians by South Africans but the increased calls by Nigerians over here for boycott of this and that and for our ambassador/Nigerian government to act this and act that has spurred me to pen this down here!

I condemn in its totality, the violence meted on Nigerians living in South Africa! I abhor the violent taking of life even one done legally……. BUT IT MUST BE STATED THAT NIGERIANS LIVING IN S.A. HAVE SYSTEMATICALLY DESTROYED THE VERY FABRIC OF THAT COUNTRY….. MORALLY, CULTURALLY, ECONOMICALLY AND SOCIALLY!

Let us take stock:

It was Nigerians that immigrated to South Africa and turned it to one of the major capital city of drugs in the world!
The drug cartels began with the Yorubas and increasingly overtaken by the IGBOS in S.A.! In fact, right this moment, the IGBOS in the drug business have effectively run the Yorubas out of S.A. to other southern African countries like Mozambique etc.

The Nigerians in S.A. have presently turned the country into a drug-war zone!….killings galore…..Igbos killing Igbos!
Do you know that every day in S.A., a Nigerian…..precisely an Igbo man is killed in a drug-related case?? …..I said every day not once a week!….or once in 3 days!….. EVERYDAY! In fact the Igbo boys running the shows in S. A. have dominated areas they control and all these to the chagrin of the law enforcement agencies!

Let me tell you a secret that is not so secret…..do you know that every week at the Akanu Ibiam International Airport here in Enugu, corpses of IGBOS…..slain in “drug battles” in different streets of S.A. are flown into the country??

I have personally witnessed the receiving of 7 corpses in 3 weeks in one instance! In fact at one of those occasions…..(normally the corpses arrive on the Thursday cargo flights of Ethiopian Airlines)….I was present when 3 different families were in the manager’s office to receive their slain sons……two of those families were represented by the aged biological fathers to the dead boys!….the third family, represented by a younger man in age…an uncle to the third corpse!

They were making small talks between themselves as they waited for the cargo (the coffins) to be disembarked…..(to be “off-loaded”)!

One of them asked the other elder which city his son was in? He answered Jo’burg!….on further enquiry as to whether his own son was married, he retorted… No!….to which the first man commented that his own son has a son from a white South African…..and that the lady simply packaged some of the personal documents/items of his son and informed him of the date of the arrival of the son’s corpse to Enugu but that she has blatantly refused all entreaties to accompany the corpse home!…..That they are certain that that son of his son (his grandson) would never return home to Nigeria!

The other silent man (the uncle to one of the dead) remarked that “his own family were indeed lucky in that their slain son had been coerced to come home and marry a Nigerian girl and has 2 kids (girls) already”. Then told of his own story of seeking greener pastures in S. A. and how he couldn’t fit into the street hustling….. According to him…….basically all IGBOS in S.A. are on the streets……from Hillbrow… Jo’burg to Capetown!….from Pretoria….to Durban!

He said he never bargained for such a life and quickly left his host….a maternal cousin and took his return ticket back home! That he has since engaged in his petty trading and is doing well enough and has 4 kids!

As this conversation was going on, I was quietly musing to myself:

How on earth could these gentlemen…..soft-spoken elderly men take all these agony……for surely it must be agony for them to be the ones burying their scions!….how could they sit in those swivel chairs in front of the manager and stoically be discussing the end of their eras??……do they have other sons and daughters probably??…. Maybe they did their best to counsel and chide their sons to desist from the fast lane and have accepted their sons’ fates??

I wondered about their wives/mothers to those sons they would never behold again….not because they died from ailment or accident but simply because they sought wealth……this fleeting wealth the wrong way!

I wondered if they would heal or forgive their sons or they would look upon the wealth and groan in satisfaction that all was not lost after all??

I imagined myself in the shoes of their grief and I swore to myself that I would sooner let go such a son from my heart who refused to heed my counsel than be forced to mourn his untimely death in pursuit of meaningless riches!

I watched them file out of the office one after the other and shuddered unconsciously again!!

This will shock you…… Are you aware that Nigerians living in S. A. have literally turned little/young South African girls into strings of well-oiled prostitution rings?? …..I am talking of girls between the ages of 10-14 years old! These young South African girls are introduced…..scratch that!….these girls are immersed in drugs and turned to addicts and then they are set on the streets to be prostituted and their lives are effectively and totally wrecked! …..
Now put yourself in the shoes of these South Africans!

Would we all as Nigerians stomach a situation whereby in Lagos State or Anambra State or Bauchi State or Enugu State or Yobe State or a combination of those states, Kenyans or Zimbabweans or South Africans or people from neighboring Ghana would populate our cities….legitly or illegally and begin to sell drugs to our young men…turn our school girls into prostitutes….and litter our streets with dead bodies of their gang wars?

Would Lagosians allow their children to be used as pimps and prostitutes by FOREIGNERS who desecrate daily our value systems??

Would Enugu inhabitants allow Ghanaians to run our streets into crime zones…..such that we can’t sleep at night and worry if our kids sent to schools are really at school or in a drug hotel somewhere sniffing white powders….and our girls violated daily sexually??

Wouldn’t we someday just scream enough is enough and take up arms to rid our city of such devilish foreigners??

Are you aware that Indians populate a city in S.A. called Durban?? Do you know that Indians at one time recently, carried out systematic killings of Nigerians living in Durban??

What was the cause??….there was some Indian youths that were sold a harsh substance by the drug cartel which would literally liquefy the innards of the person leading to instant death!

These drug pushers know that this substance is adulterated and causes death (not addiction) yet they push it out there to their peddlers!

The Indians decided to help themselves and their community and embarked on a killing spree of Nigerians in Durban engaged in the drug business and left their calling cards in their victims!

Ask yourself this:

Did the South Africans begin to hate us all of a sudden or they had always hated us all these while??

How come we all used to migrate to South Africa easily and many of us married their girls (I know some friends who did and are still living happily with their wives) but now they hate us all??

OR

Would you close your eyes to the evil we Nigerians have unleashed in South Africa simply because we saved them from apartheid era?? So because we assisted them that now gives us the gumption to destroy their society like we’ve persistently done ours??

Some home grown truths will serve us in good stead here than this pontificating all over the place I plead!

Picture those attackers on our people….beating and burning them up as mothers or fathers or brothers or cousins who have lost a son or daughter or sibling to the cold hands of death by drug intake or whose virginity has been brutally lost and who is a human wreck to her society!

Before you cast your stone…..imagine that you lost your own dear child to crime…and not just any crime but one perpetrated by your own visitors!

My take on all these: NIGERIANS SHOULD FIRSTLY DEMAND THE CLEANUP OF SOUTH AFRICA and that includes the incaceration and/or deportation of these miscreants giving us all bad reputation in S.A.!

The drug war raging in that country engineered by our countrymen must be stopped!

Then the two countries should rapport to safeguard the lives and businesses of the many genuine Nigerians living and contributing to the economy of South Africa!

PS: Pls after reading this post, but before you start the deluge of insults upon me, kindly call up your own brother doing legitimate business in S.A. and he will confirm these facts to you as the absolute TRUTH!

Chinedum Agwaramgbo"



https://abiodunborisade.com/the-killings-in-south-africa-the-nigerian-complicity-the-true-stories-by-chinedum-agwaramgbo/

BlackfireX:
Sacrifice , renewal

Wetin u no go hear for here...

kinibigdeal:
How old are you?

They seem to only witness "letter writing period" of Baba

hannysur8:
Segun Showumi that cannot win Just National Assembly election said Dapo Abiodun who win throughout the state is standing with one leg, Ode
although Obasanjo is great but Abiola is greater, he died like a hero

Na over confidence cause im loss. He was and remain the best candidate amongst the contestants

Biritiko:
Osinbajo is greater that Obasanjo any day any time

See as person reason... Na wah ooo

Great man he was!

But I have a question:

“MKO Abiola is one of those that belongs in that galaxy of stellar leaders who at the critical moments said No. Nelson Mandela was one of them, Leah Sharibu is another young example.

“MKO Abiola, when he was given a conditional release in detention, said No. This is an essential lesson,” he said.



My question is on the highlighted section... He was given an option but he resisted and at the end he died in prison. What happens if he had accepted the condition and continue his fight outside the prison than to die in detention?

Again on Leah issue, what if she denounced her religion and got the needed freedom(being the reason she is still in captivity) and then continue to practice her religion when she is freed?

Please I just want to understand the best approach to adopt when one finds him/herself in such a situation.

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deavicky:
1.6 Nigerian style or Togo?

Benin

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