Scolari and Kaka, a match made in Heaven - will the superstar who prefers Bible

kaka leite
kaka leite

Scolari and Kaka, a match made in Heaven - will the superstar who prefers Bible
to nightclubs bring sexy football to Chelsea?

The man who would be charged with bringing sexy football to Roman Abramovich's Chelsea
is a 26-year-old Christian who prefers Bible studies and church meetings to nightclubs
and alcohol and was, famously, a virgin when he married his wife, Caroline Celico.

Ricardo Izecson dos Santos Leite, better known as Kaka, is a man born to defy football's
stereotypes and, on the surface, an unlikely candidate to add a splash of glamour
to the hedonism traditionally associated with the club on the King's Road.

He even belies the familiar story of the poor boy who escapes Brazil's shanty towns
through his prowess at football. Far from being raised in poverty, Kaka was brought
up in a well-educated and stable family in a middle-class suburb of Sao Paulo. His
father, Bosco Izecson Pereira Leite, was a civil engineer and his mother, Simone
Cristina dos Santos Leite, worked as a teacher.

Now the God-fearing Kaka has become the man chosen by Abramovich, Chelsea's Russian
billionaire owner, to fulfil his ambition to bring a touch of footballing fantasy
to the club that is his plaything.

But if Chelsea can persuade AC Milan to part with the best player in the world,
it will surely have as much to do with the lure of the club's new manager, Luiz
Felipe Scolari, as with the multi-million pound deal. It is not simply that the
careers of the two Brazilians have dovetailed in the past, when Scolari, as manager
of the Brazil national team, gave Kaka his international debut against Bolivia in
2002 and then included the 20-year-old as a reserve in his World Cup-winning squad.

Nor is it just that they share a common culture and language. But, like many Brazilians,
they are deeply religious men, even if they come from opposite ends of the Brazilian
Christian spectrum.

Kaka, nicknamed by his younger brother, Rodrigo, when he struggled to say Ricardo
properly, is a member of the Reborn in Christ Church in Sao Paulo, which hosts thousands
of worshippers at its modern services and is typical of the fast-growing Pentecostal
churches in Brazil.

Scolari, 43 years older than Kaka, will be a kindred spirit even though he comes
from a more traditional Catholic background.

Despite his apparent disinclination for turning the other cheek - he once punched
Serbia defender Ivica Dragutinovic during the qualifiers for Euro 2008 - he is a
follower of Our Lady of Caravaggio, a devotion surrounding the reported appearance
of the Virgin Mary at the Italian village in the 15th century.

Our Lady of Caravaggio also has a shrine in Scolari's home state of Rio Grande do
Sul, in the south of Brazil, and where the Chelsea manager made a pilgrimage to
give thanks after leading Brazil to the World Cup in 2002. When managing Portugal,
he placed statues in the dressing room of our lady of Carravagio and of our lady
of Fatima, which represents a 20th century tradition of a reported appearance of
the Virgin Mary in a Portuguese village.

It is said that Luis Figo prayed by the shrines during the penalty shootout against
England in the 2006 World Cup quarter-final which, of course, Portugal won.

Indeed, when Brazil won the World Cup in 2002, the entire squad and backroom staff,
including Kaka and Scolari, joined hands in a circle and knelt to give thanks to
God for their success.

While it may be harsh to prejudge them, it is hard to imagine Chelsea captain John
Terry leading his teammates in a similar ritual should Scolari lead his team to
the title Kaka, who showed off a T-shirt proclaiming 'I belong to Jesus' when winning
the Champions League with Milan in 2007, represents part of the explosion in charismatic,
evangelical churches in Catholic Brazil, where 26 million people, or 15 per cent
of the population, now classify themselves as Protestants, according to the 2000
census.

Kaka is open about following the traditional teaching of the Church, most notably
in his attitude towards sex.

In an interview with Vanity Fair magazine last year he spoke about how he and his
wife, who was born into a well-off family and the daughter of the woman who represents
Dior in Brazil - remained chaste before their marriage in 2005. 'The Bible teaches
that true love waits until marriage,' said Kaka. 'If our life today is so beautiful,
I think it is because we waited.'

Caroline, who last month gave birth to their first child, Lucas, would always attend
with Kaka on the rare occasions when he did visit nightclubs in Milan, which the
player said helped him to avoid the temptation of female attention.

But he prefers to read rather than party and is keen to study theology and become
a minister after his football career. 'It's not so easy to apply to today's society
things that were written thousands of years ago,' he said. 'But that's exactly the
job of a minister - to make the teaching of the Bible relevant.'

Kaka is said to give 10 per cent of his income to his own church in Sao Paulo and
last December he presented the church with his FIFA World Player of the Year trophy,
which is now displayed in an exhibition dedicated to the player and his faith at
the conference-hall style church.

He remained loyal despite a scandal that engulfed the church's leaders, Estevam
Hernandes Filho and Sonia Haddad Moraes Hernandes.

The married couple were sentenced to five months in prison in the United States
last year after breaching US customs regulations by failing to declare $56,467 in
cash that they were importing to Miami. They are also being investigated by Brazilian
authorities for financial malpractice.

However, the incident does not seem to have affected Kaka's faith. He is a member
of Brazil's Athletes for Christ, which includes fellow World Cup winners such as
Edmilson and Lucio, and talks candidly about his faith. 'I was born into an evangelical
Christian home,' he has said. 'But when I was baptised in 1994, something supernatural
happened to me.

'I cannot explain it, but after that experience I got closer to God; more in tune
with him. At that moment I was really born spiritually. I began to know God more
in depth, and I've learned that faith works within the limits of the circumstances.'

Key to the deepening faith of Kaka appears to be an incident that might have ended
his burgeoning football career at Sao Paulo FC, but instead - due to good luck or
providence - only briefly interrupted his rise. 'It happened in October of 2000,'
he said. 'I had gone to visit my grandparents and I slipped on a swimming pool slide.

'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 the vertebrae.

'The doctors said that I was lucky to be able to even walk normally. They were talking
about luck and my family was talking about God. Back at home we always thanked God
because we knew that it was His hand that had saved and protected me.'

The majority of Chelsea fans no doubt remain unmoved by such religious sensibilities.
They will just be fervently praying that the world's greatest player really is coming
to Stamford Bridge.