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Rivaldo, winner of the golden ball and world champion, is a legend not only of Brazilian but also world football.
Today, a slightly forgotten footballer whose story is worth learning to be aware that the beginning of the road does not matter if you know where you are going and you are not going to give up!
Vitor Borba Pereira because that's his full name as a child he grew up in Brazilian favelas where hunger and diseases related to the conditions people lived in and how malnourished they were was everyday life!
Until the age of 18, Rivaldo played only as an amateur on the street because no club wanted to take him on because of how sick he was and how he looked.
Rivaldo lost almost all his teeth and his legs were crooked due to malnutrition and lack of vitamins at an early age.
Rivaldo, however, had a goal, trained hard every day on the street and believed that he could become a pro.
When at the age of 18, despite what he looked like, he got a chance in the amateur club Paulistano fc, he wasted his chances.
He played so amazingly that after half a year he went to the 3rd league Santa Cruz FC and then Mogi Mirim and then as a 21-year-old he played for the great Brazilian club Corinthians Paulista!
When he was in Corinthians, the whole of Brazil knew him and when he had enough to eat, he cured himself of the diseases caused by poverty, he trained incredibly hard and his game on the pitch charmed the whole country!
That's why, as a 21-year-old, he played for the Brazilian national team!
3 years before he didn't have a club to play for the top team in the world!
Rivaldo became world champion, he played for big clubs like FC Barcelona Ac Milan etc.
He won the golden ball!
If reading this story you still think you have a hard life and that's the reason you can't develop as a footballer then I'll tell you right now that YOU are just making excuses!
If you really want to fix something and you work hard for it, you can get it and it's all up to you!
It doesn't matter where you start!
If you've already started, never give up because you never know where you might be in 3 years!