Top 7 current footballers who came from poverty

The beautiful game has been graced by sublime talents and immortal names over the years. The likes of Diego Armando Maradona, Eusebio, Jairzinho, Garrincha, George Weah, Ronaldo, Ronaldinho, and the biggest of them all – Edson Arantes Do Nascimento, “Pele”. Now, other than being legends of the game, what else did these wonderful footballers have in common?It’s their childhood background; a life spent growing up in the streets, without food, money or luxuries, working for their livelihood from a tender age, knowing it’s a tough place out there, with the only thing that that gave them comfort and solace being that magical sphere 28 inches in circumference.Maybe it was this tough upbringing that made them fight hard for success – knowing from an early age that things seldom go your way and that you have to fight, fight and fight more to achieve something. Even today, we have some of the biggest names in the game, coming from the most humble of backgrounds – for life wasn’t handed to them on a silver platter; they had to earn things.Here’s a look at the seven best footballers in the world today who went from rags to riches.

#7 Carlos Bacca

In football, 20 is an age when young footballers usually become full-fledged professionals. But in Carlos Bacca’s case, at that age, he was living in his hometown in Colombia, working as bus driver’s assistant to make ends meet.

“At 20 I was living in my village, Puerto Colombia, working as a bus driver’s assistant. Life was far from easy. Next I had to work as a ticket collector on the buses because I come from a poor family and had to earn money to help them out,” he had said in an interview shortly after he had signed for Sevilla in 2013.

“The doors of football had been closed to me for some time and at my age, it wasn’t something I could count on anymore. But that year I trialled for Junior de Barranquilla and, thank God, they took me.”

After playing in the local leagues in his hometown, Bacca began his professional career with Atletico Junior before moving going on a few loan moves. “It wasn’t until 2009, at the age of 23 that I played in my professional league match.

“I had a hard time as a child and when I started making money I thought I had made it, but I was wrong. I picked myself up and carried on. The brave are not those who let themselves sink but those who rise up stronger.”

Bacca who once thought that the ‘doors of football had been closed’ for him managed to kick it wide open thanks to his never-say-die attitude.

#6 Alexis Sanchez

Alexis Sanchez (aka El Nino Maravilla) was born in the Chilean street suburb of Tocopilla, a mining town, dominated by its large port area. His father left him at an early age, and he grew up with his mother who was a cleaner at the school he studied in.

A magnificent talent from an early age, he had to take up a number of part-time jobs to sustain his family. It was when he was earning a living by cleaning cars that he realised that football could offer him a solution from all the hardships.

In a recent HBO documentary on the forward, he says his mother didn’t like her son working for the family and that, but for football, he’d probably have ended up working in the mines. His brother Humberto later revealed that Alexis used to perform acrobatics in the street and participate in boxing bouts to earn money.

The boy from Tocopilla, which actually means “Devil’s Corner”, soon joined the Club Arauco youth team but couldn’t pay the coaching fees. However, a turning point came in his life soon, as he came late for a match in which his team was trailing by a goal, and scored eight goals subsequently, without reply.

Soon enough, Corbeloa came calling before he was signed by River Plate. Europe beckoned in a short time, as he moved to Udinese, then to Barcelona and finally Arsenal.

#5 Franck Ribery

The city of Boulogne-sur-Mer, in Pas-de-Calais, France is renowned for its belfry, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site today. The city also has one of the highest number of ghetto neighbourhoods in France. And, it was in one such neighbourhood that Franck Ribery was born.

Raised in one of the poverty-stricken ghettos on the fringes of the city, Ribery and his family met with a near fatal accident, when he was two. He was left with more than 100 stitches on his face, leaving two deep scars – something he has vowed to never remove as they are a part of his identity.

And Ribery says he is thankful for his ghetto upbringing, saying he probably would have been unemployed, like many from the neighbourhood still are, but for football. “You can’t forget your past”, he proudly says.

Prior to joining Stade Brestois as a 20-year old in 2003, Ribery worked as a construction worker with his father to make ends meet. He calls the period a learning experience. However, life soon changed for the better for him, as FC Metz bought him for free after his stint with Brestois.

Galatasaray and Les Bleus soon came calling, with Marseille signing him up later, before eventually selling him to Bayern Munich.

#4 Angel Di Maria

One of three children born to Miguel and Diana, Angel Di Maria grew in the city of Pedriel in Mendoza, West Argentina. Hyper-active as a kid, Di Maria once fell inside a well, only to be saved on time.

He helped his parents with their work at a local coal yard, along with his two sisters Vanesa and Evelyn. A brilliant footballer from an early age, he did not have the money to buy football boots, much to the sadness of his parents.

It was when he was playing for the local side Torito, that scouts from Rosario Central spotted him. The transfer fees of the winger, who was later sold and bought by two of the biggest clubs in the world, at that time, was 35 footballs! And, his age at that time? Four.

Growing up in poverty has always given Di Maria a sense of perspective that many of the other cash-spoiled, party animal footballers of today don’t have. After being transferred to Benfica, he asked his father to stop working in the coal yard and bought a house for his parents.

The boy, who shared a room with his sister and didn’t have enough to eat at times, has indeed come a far way to be where his today – living his dream, in the theatre of dreams.

#3 Zlatan Ibrahimovic

Possibly the coolest footballer on the planet today, Zlatan Ibrahimovic has a past that possibly explains his siege mentality of “me against the world”. Born in a ghetto in Rosengard to a Croat mother Jurka Gravic and an alcoholic Bosnian father Sefik Ibrahimovic, Zlatan had to undergo all the hardships that immigrants usually endured in an alien country. Things became more difficult, as his parents broke up when he was two.

Ibrahimovic later confessed that he was a frequent thief as child – living in a hard-boiled ghetto left him with no other option. And it was on a small, dusty estate in the same ghetto that he learnt the tricks, flicks and skills of the game with his friends.

He famously said later that, he had never seen a man with a collared shirt until he joined secondary school – showing the difficulties of a poor childhood.

Already a regular at Malmo FF, he nearly quit the game at the age of 15 to work in the local docks. But his coach persuaded him to devote his time to the game and Zlatan Ibrahimovic, the kid from Rosengard, joined Ajax Amsterdam at the age of 20.

Like he himself put it, “Who would’ve thought the guy from Rosengard would become the captain of Sweden?”

#2 Luis Suarez

The earliest memory in life for Luis Alberto Suarez Dias is playing football barefoot at the age of six on the rough streets of Salto, a city lying on the banks of the Rio Uruguay river. Born to Rodolfo and Sandra Suarez in a family of seven children, he migrated to Montevideo the next year, where his father, a porter, hoped to find work. In a city notorious for its rising crime and pollution rate, Suarez found life hard – he didn’t even have shoes to play the game he loved.

Football provided an escape for young Luis however, as at the tender age of 9 he was spotted by scouts of Nacional following a hat-trick he scored for a local club. But his career quickly went from promising to awry, as Suarez displayed signs of temperamental fragility that lies within him to this day.

It was then that he met Sofia Balbi, the woman who would change his life. Picking up coins from the street to treat the girl he loved on a date, it was only after meeting her that Suarez showed any real signs of dedication to the game, says his former coach Wilson Pirez.

Needless to say, he rose through the ranks of Uruguayan football, before setting Europe on light, first with Groningen, then with Ajax and most famously, with Liverpool and Barcelona.

#1 Cristiano Ronaldo, Real Madrid

Arguably the finest footballer in the world today, Cristiano Ronaldo was nearly aborted pre-birth by his mother as she candidly reveals in her autobiography Mother Courage. Born in the impoverished San Antonio neighbourhood of Funchal, in the Portuguese archipelago of Madeira, Ronaldo was the youngest child of Maria Dolores Dos Santos Aveiro, a cook, and Jose Dinis Aveiro, a municipal gardener.

Raised in a devoutly Catholic family, Ronaldo later said he lived his life in poverty, sharing a single room with his mother and two sisters. It was only in a recent interview that he revealed all of the pain and sadness that he had to undergo, in order to reach where he has today.

Expelled from school at the age of 14 because he threw a chair at a teacher who disrespected him, Ronaldo nearly had to go to work to support his family, when his mother intervened, telling her son to concentrate on the game he loved.

Ronaldo had already built a reputation of being a prodigy as he was signed as an 8-year old by local club Andorinha, where his father was a kit-man. He then joined local club Nacional, before joining the club that changed his life – Sporting Lisbon. He hasn’t put a foot wrong, ever since.