Raphinha

 

“I was lucky. By the time I was 17, I had still only played in várzea tournaments, and I was spending more money on travel than my family could afford. My goal was to get a monthly allowance from an academy to help them, but since that didn’t happen, it was easy for me to consider other ways to make money. Very easy. 

But there is no peace in that world, and I’ve lost enough friends to know that. You’re alive today, dead tomorrow. 

My parents knew. There were some examples in the family of people who had gone down that road, and it had not ended well. I was lucky just to have a family who could give me advice, because in my community it was very common to be raised by a single parent, or even just an older sibling or a neighbour or a friend. If I had to count the friends I had who were raised by two parents, I wouldn’t even need a full hand”.