For Brazil's Soccer Stars, Careers Often Begin On Makeshift Fields
The road to World Cup glory in Brazil doesn't start in fancy soccer clubs or private school yards. It often begins in places like this poor neighborhood called Rio Pequeno in Sao Paulo and on a dirt lot, where a group of children are playing soccer.
Brazil is hosting the World Cup, which starts in less than a month, and the country is also favored to win. Brazil is already a five-time champion and it has played in every World Cup since the tournament's inception.
It's no exaggeration to say that most every young boy in this country dreams of becoming a professional soccer player. The children kicking a ball around the lot in Rio Pequeno are no different.
The boys in the rag-tag group shout excitedly about who their favorite players are.
Felipe de Lucca Mendes Ferreira, 11, is small for his age but he swaggers confidently towards my microphone as if he's already used to giving comments to the press after a match.
Soccer "is a way of having fun," he says. " I want to be a big, famous player when I grow up."
In Brazil, every open patch of grass or concrete yard is a potential field of dreams where kids play with whatever they have on hand.
In Sao Paulo's soccer museum there's even an exhibit dedicated to the variety of makeshift balls used — a dolls head, a ball made out of spooled tape, or tightly wound up socks. If it is round and they can kick it, they will use it.
Last year, a documentary called "Pelada, Futebol na Favela" focused on the early lives of famous footballers in Brazil.
Soccer greats like Ronaldo and this year's projected World Cup star Neymar talk about how they got their starts in the dirt lots of their poor neighborhoods.
Narrator Silvio Luiz says that the reason so many wonderful soccer players come from the slums is because they learn how to be tough and "treacherous soccer players there, which is something they can't learn at a soccer school."