The World Cup in Qatar is the starting point for many young footballers who seek self-assertion and hide impressive stories behind them.

Antony – The story of a terrible childhood

Eduardo Camavinga or Alphonso Davies are just a few examples of footballers who went through a very difficult childhood and who ended up reaching the highest level of football.

This is also the case of Antoni, the most expensive transfer of the summer of 2022. The Brazilian will go to the World Cup for the first time, and his story is worth a movie.

Brazil’s Antoni, 22, is among the 26 players coach Tite will rely on at the World Cup in Qatar.

Manchester United paid 95 million euros in the summer of this year for the transfer of Antoni, who excelled in Ajax Amsterdam.

Before coming to Europe, the Brazilian played soccer in the dangerous streets of a São Paulo favela full of drug dealers under the watchful eye of his aunt.

Until the age of 18, Antony slept in the bed with his father, where he felt safe.

“I was born in hell, and this is no joke. If you want to understand me as a person, then you should take this detail into account.

Where I come from, my roots, my history and the hell I left behind.

It was a shameful place, only 15 steps from the door of my house there were always drug dealers closing their business. I was so used to seeing weapons every day that nothing scared me anymore. They were part of our everyday life.

I was only afraid that one day the police would come to us. One day he ran away to look for someone, and such events cannot fail to mark you.

In life you suffer enough, you worry enough, you cry enough. In football, when you have the ball at your feet, you should feel only joy. I was born to dribble, it’s my fave talent. I will never change my style of play because it is part of me.” – said Antony.

The way to school, a real nightmare

The footballer, who was released by Sao Paulo, also spoke about the traumatic experience of the trip to school.

“I think I was 8-9 years old when I came across a man lying on the ground. He wasn’t moving at all, he was dead.

I had no choice but to jump over it, so I closed my eyes and kept going. I’m not saying this to sound harsh, it was reality. The soccer ball was my salvation from this place.

I’ve always said that I was a lucky kid who grew up in the wrong place, but with the right people. With the ball at my feet, I was not afraid of anything.

I learned tricks from watching on YouTube what Ronaldinho, Neymar, Cristiano Ronaldo do. At the age of 14, they took me to the Academy of São Paulo.

I didn’t have money to buy food, so I would come back from training with an empty stomach.” – he noted.

“I was very thin, but I always played with blood in my eyes. That’s the intensity of the game you get on the streets.

You can’t pretend, you just come from the Inferninho favela. I don’t feel pressure in football. Some can’t even imagine what I went through.” Antony added.

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Post by The Players’ Tribune (@playerstribune)