You Can’t Hug Alone

Para ler em Português, clique aqui.

You must have heard a lot about me in the last few days. I bet you have. But maybe you still don’t know much about me. Because I’m not just a day, I’m not just a match, I’m not just a player, just a goal…. I’m not the guy that those people who talk a lot about me, often superficially, want me to be.

So, it’s better for me to tell you once and for all who I am.

In my own words. No frills.

Well, I’m the son of two Brazilian teachers. And whoever wants to really know me will need to understand what that means in our country. My values, my principles, my dreams, my ideas, the way I see life and try to act in it, and in a positive way — everything comes from there. Every single day, I feel grateful and honoured for having come from where I came from and the education I received.

My family rented a tiny apartment in Diadema, a city in the Metropolitan São Paulo area, and my parents worked from seven in the morning till 11 in the evening. That’s why I’ve always done my own laundry since I was seven. I know that white clothes should be presoaked before turning on the washing machine and that you can’t use too much fabric softener. But, to my mother’s dismay, I always overdid it because I wanted my sweaty football jerseys to smell nice. 

When I was 11, I started attending the evening shift at school so I could train at São Paulo FC. It was far away, you know? Three bus rides to go and three back home. On the weekends, I would read newspaper articles that my father would select for me and then answer a lot of questions from him:

What did you understand?

What’s your opinion on it?

How can you apply this to your life?

I know, I know…. It was a privilege to be raised with a father, a mother, and a sister who were always present for me, protecting me, giving me affection, and showing me the better paths in life. I am the result of it. I had the opportunity to live with little during my childhood and teenage years and live with everything thanks to my work, which allowed me to get to know different countries, cultures, and people.

Walking around poor city outskirts or through football castles, I experienced things that were external to me. Not all of them were good. But I never let what was always inside me fade away, which is this desire to reflect, learn, understand, and, above all, not conform to things like: “Oh, that’s just how things are; there’s no way to change it.” Why not?! Of course there is a way!

The other day, I went to pick up my daughters from school, and another father made an offensive joke about the game we had lost the day before. My first reaction was to pretend I didn’t hear it. To leave it alone and go home with the girls. But no. That wouldn’t be me. I believe in confronting a bad situation in an effort to make it better. Football provides us with many of these opportunities. So, I approached the guy and asked him some questions:

“Come on, let's talk. Yesterday, I lost the game, right? And you felt that loss too, maybe. But today we get to pick up our daughters from school. That's something I value as much as any victory. What about you?”

Football is a special thing because it enables this type of connection between people. And people are the most important thing in the world.

A house has a price, a car has a price, and a private school education has a price. But what really matters is people and what they do. Football provides a connection among people that can turn our perceptions of life upside down. Sure, on the pitch I am happy to share in the fans’ celebration when their team wins. But I also want to help them see the important things that come with defeat.

A defeated fan is often not frustrated about the team or about me. Their frustration has nothing to do with football. It is already inside them, in their life, and football is where they vent it: It is the escape valve for all the frustration that we are forced to experience in this system that does not share, does not help, does not explain, that takes more than it offers, turning everything into price instead of value and making people feel miserable because they cannot pay.

Hold on. I am not judging anyone. I am sharing my personal experiences: how I was raised as a human being, as a sportsman, and as a guy who is in the world and acts to change it. And, of course, I wasn’t born with this awareness I have today. Although my family background made a difference, it was only as I matured that I came to accept this as a fundamental part of me.

As a teenager, I had my days of being quite clueless. Who hasn’t? One of those missteps happened soon after I joined São Paulo FC. But I learnt my lesson. And when I learn something important, I like to highlight it. I’ll tell you what happened. I arrived at São Paulo with the fake boots I’d bought from a street vendor while all the other kids wore Nike, Adidas, and stuff. One weekend, I was going to sleep at a teammate’s house, and his mother took us shopping to buy him a new pair of boots. Top-notch silver Nikes. There were the bronze-coloured ones that Ronaldinho and Denílson used to wear and the silver ones. He wanted the silver ones. Some six-hundred pounds, in today’s money. I kept staring at them, drooling. Then I asked his mother if I could use her phone, left the store, faked a call home and came back:

“Awesome, lady! My mother allowed it. She said you can buy a pair of boots just like these for me, and when your credit card bill arrives, she will pay you.”

I don’t know if my mother was more disappointed with the lie or that I had slipped up when I was being put to the test. Because I knew that a pair of studs wouldn’t make me play better or worse. And I also knew that my family couldn’t afford an expense that size. But at that moment, I behaved as society expected and still expects of us all: “Be the same as others; don’t be yourself. Copy the others, try to be someone you’re not because that’s just how it is; it won’t change.”

With social media, this has become more evident. And maybe that’s why people are increasingly anxious and depressed. We’re working 15 hours a day instead of eight. We eat our meals while talking to our bosses on WhatsApp, take timed showers, and have a set day to tell our children bedtime stories. We’re forced to speed up so much to fit in, to be the same as others, so much so that we don’t take the time to sell the roses anymore. It’s hard to “live” like this. And it's even harder to dare to be different: you need to have the strength and the notion that you’ll lose more than you win, but in the end, you’ll come out on top, like in a boxing movie.

My mother had to work a lot of overtime to pay for those boots. Sometime later, see how life is…. Nike decided to sponsor me. I got a silver boot from the guys and framed it, and to this day, my mother has it hanging on her bedroom wall. It was the way I found to thank her: to show that I learnt my lesson and that I would never have lived the life I live today without them, my parents. The framed silver football boots are a reminder and a way to honour our family’s journey.

Another reminder in this sense is my flat in Lisbon. The first one I bought after I managed to buy a house for my parents. I had signed my first good contract with Benfica and took out a loan to buy this little flat in Lisbon. I furnished it myself, installed the wallpaper, which was full of bubbles, and bought cheap curtains and a sofa bed; I did everything myself. To this day, I pay the mortgage. I didn’t want to pay it off because the whole process of paying is part of the achievement, its own meaning. The flat is still there in the same way. I don’t sell it, and I don’t rent it out. I lend it to friends.

Talking about Benfica, that first good contract that established me as a professional player was a saga. It could be a movie. I ended up there because the club owed my agent money, and they took me on to liquidate the debt. I was just a kid who played for a third-division team from Bahia, EC Vitória, and arrived in Lisbon wearing a sleeveless shirt mid-winter. But let me go back in time a little further.

After a few years at São Paulo FC, one day, they sent me away, saying that I wouldn’t grow enough to be a successful player. I went to América Mineiro, which at the time had a structure that left a lot to be desired.

I can’t say I starved there, but I went three days without food. For breakfast, there were 40 loaves of bread for 150 kids. For lunch, a cup of mashed beans. For dinner, another cup. We would go around the woods near the lodging to get avocados to complete our diet. I lasted three months and then ran away.

I went back to Diadema, and a friend who had gone to Vitória told me: “David, they need midfielders here.” I was still a left midfielder, and so I went. But I only trained with the second team for months, and, at most, I would sit on the bench. I never played. I wanted to play! One day, both the starting defenders got injured, and I decided to take a chance. I asked to train as a defender. “Are you crazy, kid?!” my coach asked. But I persisted, and he eventually gave in. I ended the season as the best defender in the championship we were playing in.

Months later, my agent somehow managed to get some people from the Belgian side Anderlecht to come and watch me.

“You’re practically sold, David. Go pack your bags,” he told me.

The year was 2006. The Belgians came to see me in one of the last games of the third division that year. We had already secured our spot at Série B, in the second division and would face Criciúma away. Anderlecht’s president, the coach, a director, and I don’t know who else — five Belgians in total — landed in São Paulo and took a 12-hour bus ride to Santa Catarina state. It rained heavily. The match starts. Ten minutes in, 1-0 for Criciúma. At half-time, 3–0. At 70 minutes, 6–0. The Belgians turned their backs and left, soaking wet. They didn’t say anything.

I went from “practically sold” to wholly rejected. Today, I can only imagine what I would be saying here if I had gone to Anderlecht…. I stayed at Vitória and suffered a severe groin injury. I wasn’t playing, because I could barely walk, and my agent called me again. “David, do you have your passport with you?” I had no idea, but I answered, “Yes, it’s at the club’s office.” It should be there, right? In the heat of Bahia, I wasn’t even wearing a T-shirt … how could I know about a passport? Of course, I didn’t have it, and it wasn’t at the club’s office either. It was in Diadema, as I found out later.

That same night, I was supposed to fly from Bahia’s capital, Salvador, to São Paulo and then to Lisbon. I would pass a medical exam and sign a contract with Benfica the following day. But while I was trying to find my passport, we missed the flight to São Paulo, me and the employee my agent had sent to help me on the trip. That’s when I got really desperate. The São Paulo-Lisbon flight was leaving at 10:30 that evening. My agent was crazy, mad, pissed off. At eight o’clock, we’re still in Salvador, like headless chickens.

What now? What do we do?

“Wait a minute, I’ll find a way,” the agent says.

His solution was to borrow a jet from Ivete Sangalo, a superstar singer from Bahia, to take us to São Paulo, leaving everything ready to check in on the runway, and eventually board the plane to Lisbon. He knew Ivete, and she let him use the jet. Picture this….

When I boarded the private jet, the pilot must have noticed my look of despair and said: “Don’t worry, pal, Ivete has never missed a concert with me. We’ll be on time. Don’t worry.” I whispered so he couldn’t hear: “She’s never missed a concert, but she’s always late for them!” Hahaha…. But let’s go!

While we were in flight a courier on a motorbike picked up my passport at my parents’ home in Diadema and sped to São Paulo, meeting us at the airport. Everything was set for takeoff to Lisbon!

But then the lady from the airline takes the documents and tickets and says: “There’s just one problem, gentlemen. Your plane was that one over there.” And she points to the big thing taking off. I told you it looked like a movie…. In the end, I think everything went wrong so that everything could go just right.

The following day, I arrive at the agent’s office in a posh São Paulo neighbourhood, and he hands me the phone. It was the president of Benfica:

“Well, so you do exist!” he said with his thick Portuguese accent. “After all, you do exist. Can you play this weekend?”

“Yes, I can, Mr. President.”

Because of the groin injury, I could barely walk. Everything hurt.

He goes on:

“I forgot to ask how you’re doing physically. Are you injured?”

“No, Mr. President. I’m doing great.”

“Good! Then I’ll wait for you here tomorrow.”

I arrived in Lisbon and went straight to the club. I signed a six-month contract before taking the tests. When the doctors discovered the groin injury, they called the physiotherapist, the director, and the physical coach. I was in a room next door, just listening to the conversation. One of them asked, “How will we get this lad to train? He’s already signed a contract. He’s with Benfica now.” The other replied: “He must arrive three hours early every day, receive treatment from us, train, and then stay another three hours afterwards.” And the third added: “Fine. But the president and the coach can’t know.”

That’s how I got into European football. I laugh about it now, but it was really challenging. The team included names like Nuno Gomes, Simão Sabrosa, Luisão and many others. Benfica’s coach was Fernando Santos, who would later win the Euro with the Portuguese national team. He would look at me during training and yell: “Is this the Brazilian player they sent us, man?! He should go back to Copacabana because he really sucks.” He would curse at me, and I couldn’t do anything because of the pain. If I managed to control the ball, the guys would steal it. I would run, but I would fall. It had everything to be a fiasco. But the groin injury improved with those six hours of daily treatment, and so did I. Even so, it was rare for me to be called up for a match. When I did, I would call my parents: “I’m going to be on the bench on Sunday! Watch it on TV; maybe I’ll be shown in a corner of the screen.”

One day, my name was on the list of those who would travel to Paris to face PSG in the Europa League, because there weren’t enough defenders fit to play. It was my first time wearing a suit, and I was happy to see the Eiffel Tower at least. If I could play for five minutes, it would be glory. During the match, Luisão, my good pal, the starting defender, the captain, and practically the team owner, felt an injury he had been treating. His usual stand-in, a Greek midfielder, had a bad flu and stayed at the hotel that afternoon. So, at minute 35, we were winning 1–0 when Luisão came off injured. Fernando Santos looks at the bench, and there’s only me in the position. He makes that defeated face: “Well, we’ll have to put you in.”

I enter the match, and 10 tragic minutes follow. In my first move, the guys cross into the area; I take my foot off, and the ball hits the ground and goes in: 1–1. Only two minutes later, they come at me, dribble me, and turn the score around: 2–1. Fallen on the ground, I think to myself: “Yeah, David. The dream is over. Tomorrow the guys are going to fire you.” It felt like I was inside a blender.

We leave for halftime, and everyone looks at me when I enter the locker room. Some are angry, others are looking at me with pity. Fernando Santos calls me aside and asks: “Do you want me to take you out?” He is one of those who feel sorry for me.

This is a key moment in my career.

There are others, but this was very decisive. As incredible as it may seem, it never crossed my mind to answer: “Yes, sir, you better take me out.” I felt light, even. I was already dead, so what did I have to lose? So, I said: “No, no, no. I want to come back for the second half.”

At that moment, still in the locker room, I went alone to the toilet and, since I knew I had the grit to face that adversity, simply said a prayer for peace of mind.

I come back, we lose the game 2–1, but I am voted the best on the pitch. On the way back to Portugal, we face Leiria at home, win 2–0, I am once again voted the man of the match, never to leave the team again. I had won the favour of the fans, the coach, my teammates, the president and the journalists. Benfica’s starting defensive duo was now Luisão and me.

But remember when I said my contract was only for six months?

With one month left, two offers arrived. Let’s say I was earning 2,000 by then. The first offer was from Benfica itself: a five-year contract for 5,000. The second was from Porto: a five-year contract for 100,000.

My family was still in the little rented apartment in Diadema, with my parents teaching all day until late at night.

I was distressed.

I called my father to ask for some guidance. I told him about the two offers, and he didn’t hesitate: “Sign with Benfica now! They gave you the opportunity even when you were injured. They did everything they could so you could seize the chance of a lifetime. You don’t bite the hand that feeds you. You must sign with Benfica.”

I knew my father would say that. I knew, above all, that in a moment like this, when I was in doubt about whether to help my family as soon as possible or wait a little more, he would be the one to say the right thing. His words would once again bring me closer to my essence, instead of pushing me away from it, making me grow, reflect, learn, consider the consequences of my actions, and be at peace with whatever decision I took. Because we had already lived through a similar moment years before.

While playing for São Paulo FC’s youth team, I would do an odd cameo whenever I could at Engenheiros de Pirituba, a Sunday league team. Hidden from São Paulo FC, of course. When I was around 10 or 11, I broke my arm in one of those matches for Egenheiros. That was on a Saturday afternoon. On Sunday morning, I had a final with São Paulo against Santos FC. As I got home with my arm all twisted, hanging, and swollen, my father bombed me with questions:

Are you willing to overcome the pain to honour your commitment?

What lesson can you learn from what happened?

What are you going to do tomorrow?

“I’ll endure the pain and fulfill my commitment to São Paulo.”

“Very well. I’ll help you.”

I spent the whole night applying ice packs, hot water bottles, cold water, contrast, and bandages, and my father even put a cast on my arm.

The following day, he cut the cast off, and I went to the match. We lost the final. I remember finally going to the hospital, still wearing my uniform from the game, and that what hurt more than the defeat or even my injury was the mistake I had made in playing those hidden games. That episode has dramatically impacted my life in terms of overcoming, enduring pain, and maintaining discipline. Many people will say that I was irresponsible. Maybe I was. But it was much more than that. That situation made me more determined and taught me a lesson that I’ve never forgotten: No pain is stronger than a dream.

Almost 15 years later, when I played in a Champions League final with an eight-centimetre muscle tear in my thigh, that’s what I was thinking. Maybe I only got on the pitch in that final because of that episode when I was 12, and the many other moments that taught me to handle pain.

That 2012 match for Chelsea against Bayern in Munich would also make a great film.

My process of preparing to play involved everything from devising mental strategies to manage the pain to watching hours and hours of videos of Mario Gómez, Robben and Ribéry, Bayern’s forwards, to understand how I could stop them in my physical condition. Then, I had to get the doctor to accept it, the physical coach to accept it, the coach to accept it, and the club’s owner to accept it. Winning the Champions League was Chelsea’s greatest ambition. It was an unprecedented title for the club, which had lost a final four years earlier against Manchester United.

The day before the match, we did a light training session, and every ball I kicked was like a stab in my leg. I ran and felt tears streaming down my face. But I held on. At the end of the training, I went for a walk with the physical coach, and we talked.

“It won’t work, David. You’re not fit. You shouldn’t even be able to walk with that kind of injury.”

“Yes, it will work, pal! It must work!”

Terry with a red card. Ivanovich suspended. Me, injured. Our squad was short, and only Cahill was left as a defender. So, I had to play. For that reason and for one more, which I told the physical coach:

“Listen, man, there are about 200 million Brazilians in the world. Tomorrow, I will be the only one more or less able to play in a Champions League final. On our side, Ramires is suspended. On their side, Luiz Gustavo. Rafinha will be on the bench. I am the only one to represent my country. You can’t take me out of this game. You have no idea what my family and I did to get me here. So, please go there and tell the coach that I can play. And you can also tell him that I said we’re going to be champions.”

And we were, indeed.

Bayern crushed us the whole game, but we won on penalties. I even shot one. And scored. It was one of the greatest titles and another very memorable moment in my life. We celebrated all night in Munich, then went back to London, celebrated all afternoon, paraded in the streets, and only at night, when it was all over, did I remember the pain. I looked at the back of my thigh, and there was a horrible, huge bruise on the injury. It was a complete rupture of the muscle. That’s how I played.

Football has given me many great moments, like winning the Champions League with Chelsea. But I think nothing has made me as happy, fulfilled and grateful to life as one “crazy” thing I did when I played for PSG.

A few months after I moved to Paris, two of my friends from Diadema came to spend some time with me there. They had broken up with their wife and girlfriend and were sad, so I invited them, hoping the visit would help clear their minds. Great.

They soon met other Brazilians, who played for a team like the seventh-division amateur league in the suburbs of Paris — all immigrants without proper papers.

Every night, my two friends came home angry, complaining that they were constantly beaten up. So, I said: “I’ll go over there tomorrow to watch you play.” And I did.

I arrived wearing a ninja hat, half disguised, and watched. The opponents were all dressed up, with their uniforms, equipment, water bottles, and a coach. And my friends’ team was wearing nothing: one in white shorts, another in purple, a third in yellow. The guys were hanging from the goalposts to warm up…. It was a mess.

At the end of the match, which they lost, I asked:

“Do you want me to train the team?”

I’ll never forget the guys’ smiles. They were so genuinely happy and excited, something I had only seen when I was a kid, when we would fly kites in Diadema.

I started training the guys every Monday, from 10 to midnight. Sometimes I would train them on Monday and play a Champions League match on Tuesday. I even remember scoring a goal against Barcelona on one of those days. I started loving Mondays. I couldn’t wait to be with those guys. We talked, I listened a lot, and I got to know each one’s stories and struggles.

Some made money playing capoeira, others delivering items on motorbikes or washing dishes. All of them had a hard life, afraid because of their illegal status, with little hope that things would improve, but football brightened up and took the weight off their days.

On my first holidays, I went back to Brazil and went to talk to the ultimate crazy woman, my mother:

“Mum, can you make stuff for the boys there?”

Say no more! She made travel polo shirts, tracksuits, match uniforms, training uniforms, everything in sizes S, M, L, XL….

I went back to Paris with 21 suitcases. The guys’ dedication grew along with their joy. We started training twice a week, then three times. We got promoted, and at the end of the season, I had a crazy idea. Another one. “I’m going to throw a gala for the team, just like PSG does for us every year.” I rented a castle-like nightclub where Matuidi had thrown his birthday party and started producing ours.

I had already hired a guy who used to film for PSG to film our guys’ matches, too. I asked him to bring all the videos to my house so we could watch them and choose the best goals of the year, the top scorer, the goalkeeper’s best saves. Let’s show them on the big screen! Then I ordered trophies for the winners of each category. Hey, but what about the others? Plaques! We’re going to make little wooden-and-acrylic plaques with each one’s name on them. Everything was perfect. The day before, I called the guys together:

“Do you have a white button-up shirt and a basic black coat for tomorrow’s party?”

Nobody had one. OK, I will buy you some.

I went to the store myself and got some. Then I thought about their girlfriends and wives. I called the group again and gave each one some pocket money so that their SOs could buy a dress if they wanted.

The party night arrived.

And if I told you it was incredible, one of the most extraordinary emotional moments of my life, as cool as winning the Champions League, would you believe me?

Dance floor, dinner, red carpet, backdrop for the interviews…. I saw how happy those guys and their families were, and everything seemed to make sense. It was a good feeling of true joy, as everyone there, including me, was free and comfortable to be different, to be ourselves. We had created something unique, which should not be rare for anyone: the opportunity to feel part of something, to belong. We were truly experiencing it. At the end of the night, the owner of the castle, who had watched everything from a corner table, called me and said:

“David, I’m not going to charge you to rent the space. Somehow, I also want to be part of this. So, this is my contribution.”

It was an unforgettable season, and I will always be grateful to those guys. Would they have experienced all this without my help?

Maybe not.

But I certainly would never have had such rewarding moments without them. It was a beautiful exchange. And I want to seize this opportunity to set an example for company managers who like to talk about productivity, commitment, giving their all, doing the best for the company, but really only look down on their employees.

Guys, people like to feel part of things and be genuinely valued; they want to know they can count on someone when needed. Everyone depends on everyone else, and everyone likes to be hugged. And you can’t hug alone. So, being demanding and making speeches isn’t enough. You have to show it and put it into practice.

Solidarity, opportunity, and good pay, as a fair wage — not work — is what dignifies a person. Happy people work better because they live better. It’s quite simple. And happiness lies in simplicity.

That’s what I’m looking for today: simplicity. I’m not talking about money. I’m talking about feelings. Something I only came to fully understand during my time at Chelsea, winning titles, scoring the winning goal, all that stuff, 60,000 fans shouting my name, but then I’d get home, and I had no one to hug.

You can travel by private jet, throw a party in a castle, have an apartment in Lisbon, or visit several countries, but the best place in the world is the couch at home. It’s a place with no commas, quotation marks, shadows, or doubts.

Sitting on our couch at home, next to the people we love, everything becomes true. You don’t need to hesitate, figure out or analyse. There, we have the time and space to do what matters most: feel and be ourselves, knowing that when we live for others, there will always be two arms waiting to hug us.

Unfortunately, in our social media-addicted society, people seem to doubt that simple things are good. So, to give some meaning to their days, they throw themselves into an avalanche that drags everything to the bottom of the valley, where everyone is the same, everyone wastes more time than they enjoy, and where people have a price instead of value.

That’s all, I think…. I wrote a lot, didn’t I? I hope my parents aren’t the only ones who will read it. But this is me.

The son of two teachers who lived a little bit of everything with a ball at his feet.

A warm hug to everyone, may God be with you!

David