Kaká would bring much needed imagination and class to Chelsea, on and off the pitch
On a mild Milan day in May 2007, the World Player of the Year, Kaká, who Chelsea's new head coach, Luiz
Felipe Scolari, has 'personally requested the club sign', was
discussing Manchester United. Sir Alex Ferguson's team were about to meet Milan
at the San Siro for the return game of the Champions League semi-final, holding
a 3-2 lead. In the opening leg at Old Trafford Kaká had scored twice to give Milan
vital away goals. Now, the devout evangelical Christian, who suffered a career-threatening
spinal injury when he was 18 and donated the 2007 World Player of the Year trophy
to a São Paulo church named Renascer (which means reborn), offered this assessment
of United: 'With players like Cristiano Ronaldo they perform in the Brazil way.
Even more than Arsenal.'
From the boy from Brasilia who later that week destroyed United with yet another
of the deceptively languid displays of artistry for which he is renowned - he scored
the opening goal as Milan swept to a 3-0 victory, before masterminding the 2-1 success
against Liverpool in the Champions League final in Athens - that was some compliment.
But it also offered a clue why Scolari, who gave him his international debut against Bolivia in January
2002 in the year Big Phil led his country to their fifth World
Cup, is so keen to sign Kaká, despite the official denial from Stamford Bridge that
they have made an offer for the player. For Kaká, Scolari and millions of their
countrymen, football is a game of attack that should teem with the simple purity
of flick, pass, and move. 'Brazilian football is much different from Italian,' Kaká
says. 'It's a more complicated game here.'
It is precisely a thirst for this smoothly exhilarating football invented by Brazil,
which can ravage teams and comes so natural to Kaká, that might finally lead Roman Abramovich to countenance the kind of signing his riches have always threatened
but not yet delivered. Since he bought the club in 2003, the Russian
billionaire has spent more than £500m on Chelsea, but has never yet landed a superstar with
an already stellar career that could still ascend to a further high. Of Abramovich's many purchases, it was arguably Kaká's former team-mate at Milan, Andriy Shevchenko,
who arrived with the biggest reputation, having won the Champions League and been
voted European Footballer of the Year. But the Ukraine striker was nearly 30 when
he joined the club two summers ago and has done little to suggest his £30.9m fee
was good value.
Instead, Kaká has won the World Cup with Brazil in 2002, received his own Ballon
d'Or - also last year - and, crucially, is keen to leave the San Siro 'for a fresh
challenge', according to a close friend. 'He is loyal to Milan, but he needs to
leave to improve.' As he is only 26 years old, Chelsea would be acquiring a player
who hopes his very best years and performances are yet to arrive.
Joining Scolari, who is also a devout Christian, at Chelsea is certainly an intriguing
prospect. 'I will always be grateful to Big Phil because he was the first manager
to give me a chance in the national team,' Kaká says, before hinting that Scolari,
whatever the official denials, will get his man. 'But I do admire him for the way
he sticks to his plans regardless of the pressure from the media and the public.
He is also a winner and has proved so.'
Scolari, meanwhile, must be twinkling even more at the thought of how his first
days at Chelsea are unfolding. Last week he was quick with the jokes when unveiling
new right-back José Bosingwa and Deco, a gifted playmaker. Both have won Champions
League titles, when together at Porto in 2004, and know Scolari well having played
for him during the Brazilian's five years in charge of Portugal.
Kaká, though, elevates the vision of what may happen over the coming seasons for
Scolari and Chelsea beyond all previous imagination.
'His reading of the game is uncanny and it seems he has already thought of what
to do with the ball an hour before he even gets it,' Scolari says. 'I also admire
his behaviour outside the pitch. Kaká is serious and serene, something important
for a footballer in these days.'
It could also be vital in west London. Chelsea have hardly been loved during the
first half-decade of the Abramovich era. Patience with the posturing of former coach
José Mourinho thinned and the club's image as a bloated, cash-soaked machine that
lacks charm, has been hard to transform.
Kaká, a proud virgin in 2005 when he married childhood sweetheart Caroline Celico
and who comes from a middle-class family, could well be the driving force behind
a change.
Ricardo Izecson dos Santos Leite, who was born in Brasilia on 22 April 1982, began
life with myopia and a rare bone deficiency. His younger brother Rodrigo is also
on Milan's books. Their
father, Bosco, was an engineer - he is now Kaká's advisor
- who recalls how his elder son's academic abilities meant he was forced by his
first professional club, São Paulo, to choose 'between university and football'.
He has also proved resilient.
'When I was small, I really was small,' he says recalling
his difficult childhood. 'The doctors told me my body was about two years behind
in terms of development. And until I got contact lenses at age 13 I always wore
glasses. I really couldn't see without them.'
The family moved to São Paulo when Kaká was seven and three years later he joined
the club who play at the Morumbi Stadium, which was near his home.
'He stood out immediately,' says Milton Cruz, who coached Kaká from the age of 13
and is now São Paulo's assistant coach. 'He was so small and thin, but had talent.
He was intelligent, he could see connections, but was not strong enough.'
This was addressed at 14 when the club drew up a special diet and fitness routine.
'By 16 I'd filled out,' Kaká says. 'It's incredible how much I grew in such a short
space of time. And also I've now had laser surgery so my eyesight is better as well.'
In 2000, though, came a terrible back injury suffered while visiting his grandparents in Caldas Novas. 'I slipped on a swimming pool slide on a water-toboggan. When I
fell into the water I hit my head on the bottom of the pool and twisted
my neck, which caused a fracture of a vertebra. The doctors could never explain what happened.
With that kind of fracture, most cases end in paralysis. Yet somehow the vertebra
broke without causing paralysis. And then, after much work, it healed perfectly.
'The doctors were shocked. All they could do was tell me how lucky I was. I don't
see it as luck, I see it as God protecting me and saving me from what would have
been a life-changing injury.'
Miraculously, Kaká had recovered by the following January and rapidly began his
rise to prominence. 'Until he turned 19, Kaká was unknown beyond his club,' says
Breno Tannuri, his former lawyer. Two years earlier he had also failed to catch
Arsène Wenger's eye when the Arsenal manager watched a São Paulo under-17s match.
'The first time people started to take notice was in the final of the Copa Rio between
São Paulo and Botafogo in 2001,' Tannuri says. 'He came off the bench and scored
two fantastic goals to help win the game.'
A year later came his international debut, then a first goal for Brazil against
Iceland in March and he was a member of Scolari's squad that triumphed in South
Korea and Japan. Having made a single appearance in the tournament, Kaká ran on
to the pitch following Brazil's 2-0 victory over Germany in the final in Yokohama
wearing the 'I belong to Jesus' T-shirt he has become synonymous with. But, he says,
'I don't pray for victory. It may be tempting to some, but I don't ever do that.
That's not something we should expect God to get involved in. It would be abusing
our relationship
with him. I do pray that he gives me the possibility to do well,
but then, once I am given the chance, it's up to me to do it. And, of course, I
pray that neither I nor my team-mates, nor my opponents, get injured.'
The move to Milan came in the summer of 2003, ending three years at São Paulo that
gave him 23 goals in 59 league appearances. Milan paid £5m - 'peanuts' as owner
Silvio Berlusconi memorably said - and his five years at the San Siro have so far
yielded 54 goals in 162 Serie A appearances, a Scudetto, the Champions League, the
European Super Cup and the Club World Cup. Meanwhile, Kaká's international record
stands at 22 goals from 59 matches.
If Chelsea do sign him - though Milan are also denying the story, a representative
from the club is thought to have been in London to meet the Stamford Bridge hierarchy
- they may finally have landed a player and man who could dramatically alter the
common perception of the club.
His favourite passage from the Bible comes from Philippians 4:13 and reads: 'I can
do all
things through Christ which strengtheneth me.' He also says quite calmly:
'I am a radical. That's just the way I am. I have my life, I have my values. And,
compared to much of society, especially football, I am a radical. In fact, I'm very
radical.'
By all accounts Kaká is driven by these principles. Last New Year he and his wife
attended a celebration at the Renascer church along with hundreds of locals, while
100,000 watched and listened by television, radio and the internet.
This visit came despite the church being led by a preacher, named Estevam Hernandes,
who, with his wife Soa, was arrested in August 2007 while trying to go through customs in Miami carrying more than $56,000 (£28,000). Kaká has always refused to discuss
the incident, but has remained unswervingly loyal.
If Scolari does get his way, Kaká's sublime football skills and qualities away from
the game would only add a further dimension to watching the Premier League this
season.
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