Amazing Anderson Article

4927 Views 47 Replies 18 Participants Last post by sparkic, Apr 9, 2008

sparkic

Discussion Starter · Mar 31, 2008

My mate sent me this article on him which he got off a fourm. I knew some of the things written on him but still this article blew me away!

Anderson has no fear - on the field or in life

Ferguson's brilliant Brazilian is exemplary in his touch, exquisite in his passing and a young man ahead of his time. Duncan Castles meets him.

Sunday March 30, 2008
The Observer

Sir Alex Ferguson was not amused with the gentleman of the Fourth Estate. The focus of his ire that August afternoon: an obsession with Carlos TÃ©vez to the silent discomfort of the other South American at Manchester United's joint unveiling. 'The lad's come all the way here to speak to youse lot, has nobody got a question for him?' chided Ferguson, though still there was little interest in TÃ©vez's stocky Brazilian sidekick.

If Anderson LuÃs de Abreu Oliveira was the clear reserve that day, an expensive teenager who had played a handful of senior games before Ferguson's summer shop in Portugal, he is first choice today. Now he is simply Anderson - prospective Young Player of the Year, favoured over Paul Scholes in key Champions League ties, the 'class with a brass, who shits on FÃ¡bregas', according to his Old Trafford paean.

United fans are as prudent with their vocal favours as they are inventive with the lyrics; mere kids generally have to wait. Anderson, though, is a footballer to go head over heels for. Nineteen, with the decision-making, position-taking intelligence of a 30-year-old. Short at 1.76m, yet muscular, balanced, and rapid enough to win most physical battles. Exquisite in his control, visionary in his passing. And as self-confident as they come.

'Scared? I've never been scared of anything,' says Anderson. 'And when the subject is playing football I'm not scared of anyone. In football you can't be scared. You are there for the football; you are there to have fun, to play.'

And to win. As of yesterday morning Anderson had taken the field in just 78 senior club games, yet his haul of medals is greater than most retiring pros. There are two Portuguese League titles and two Portuguese Cups to show for his two seasons at Porto, a Brazilian second division title for his one season in Gremio's first team; the Copa AmÃ©rica from his only full-international tournament; the South American Under-17 title; and a runners-up medal at the Under-17 World Championship. Injured in the opening minutes of the final, he followed Cesc FÃ¡bregas in being named the junior World Cup's outstanding player.

So talented is Anderson that Porto signed him up before he had travelled to that 2005 tournament in Peru, striking a deal with the agent Jorge Mendes jointly to buy the player's registration for â‚¬8million (Â£6.3m). After his arrival in northern Portugal that December, his coach at Porto deliberately kept him out of the first team. Realising that once Europe's more moneyed clubs watched the midfielder play they would covet him, Co Adriaanse pragmatically elected to hide Anderson away to ensure one full season with him in his side.

Type the Portuguese phrase Batalha dos Aflitos into YouTube and you will see why Anderson holds hero status at his only Brazilian club, despite spending less than a season in Gremio's first XI. As its moniker suggests, his final match for the Porto Alegre side was a battle, a promotion play-off at Nautico in which GrÃªmio needed to avoid defeat to return to Brazil's top flight.

The visitors are already down to 10 men with half an hour to play when a penalty is awarded against them. Three more of their number are sent off for protesting against the referee's decision as defeat appears to become inevitable. Yet with Nautico's players bent in prayer, the penalty is saved, allowing Anderson to gather possession from the subsequent corner.

The playmaker accelerates forward from the edge of GrÃªmio's area, exchanging a one-two with his sole supporting team-mate before drawing an ugly foul two-thirds of the way up the left wing. The free-kick is taken swiftly, Anderson cutting into Nautico's box and across the bows of two defenders before screwing the ball back past the opposition goalkeeper. 'InacreditÃ¡vel,' screams the commentator. Incredible, indeed. Nautico are broken, the match finishes 1-0, and Anderson flies back to the south, brandishing a Gremio flag in the airplane's ****pit in a conscious copy of Brazil's 2002 World Cup return.

'I was living the moment as Ronaldo did when he won the fifth World Cup,' recalls Anderson. 'I had also imagined it, waving a small Gremio flag on the plane's window. It was the best match of my life. I'd been unhappy because of the injury that took me out of the World Cup, I was only about 60 per cent fit and we had that critical match. My team-mates truly had faith in me and told me I was going to score the goal which would make us win. Still recovering from my injury, I'd looked at them and said to myself, "These guys are crazy, they are insane".'

There are less flattering parallels with Ronaldo. Used to a national team who almost uniformly treat them with tolerant openness, Brazilian journalists describe Anderson as mascarado: arrogant in attitude in a manner unmerited by his status. Last week he rolled up to the team's London hotel in a heavily customised Audi R9, R&B blaring from the sound system, designer threads on his back as he strode past reporters.

He tells a good story of the battalion of agents attempting to secure his signature as the star of Porto Alegre local youth leagues, and is brazenly honest in his attitude to cash. 'I was 12 or 13 years old,' he says. 'This guy asked if we could talk and I said yes. Then he said, "I give you everything you want; I give you whatever you choose". "Is that right?" I answered. "You really give everything I want? OK then, I want $13 million tomorrow in my bank account and I sign with you". He stared at me, asked if I was being serious. I said I was and he turned his back and left. Yes, I like money a lot. Who doesn't?'

There is, though, good reason for such materialism. Anderson's father died in 2001 and by the age of 14 his Gremio youth-team salary supported his mother, sister and two brothers. 'It was not entirely a bread-winning issue, but helping the family,' he says. 'I became used to being a man very young. I was 15, but already thinking as if I was 22, 23 or 24 and making very tough decisions about my future. I had to help the family, but that was also a responsibility I assumed before myself. And that I still do today and hope to be able to do for my family until I am 60.

'Football helped me out in my life. I can tell you that from my first group of friends, only two or three are still alive. All the others passed away, mostly from drug addiction or being involved in drug dealing. I took the path of joy and happiness, instead of a life of drugs and becoming one more addicted, jailed dealer or thief.'

United billeted the former street kid and fellow Portuguese Liga acquisition Nani with Cristiano Ronaldo for their first month in England. Though he now has a house of his own, Anderson's family have remained in Porto. Instead the teenager lives with his 'second mother', Mendes's employee Manuela Brandao, a former national newspaper journalist in Portugal. 'He's my little boy,' says Brandao. 'When he came to Porto he was only 17, just a kid. Jorge told me I had to look after him like a little son, so now I stay with him in England.' As is his habit with his most valued clients (including Ronaldo and Nani), Mendes makes regular house visits.

Ferguson loves him, describing Anderson as 'a big-game player', touting him for Young Player of the Year honours, and justifying his â‚¬30m transfer as one that needed to be done swiftly before he matured into one of the world's best footballers. The Scot has also added a new position to a range that already included No10, winger and left-back, by giving Anderson the majority of his games as a defensive midfielder - albeit an unusually creative one.

'If Anderson stays where he is, he can be fantastic,' says another Brazil midfielder, Gilberto Silva. 'He makes the difference because he can score goals and come back to mark. He has a good technique and so much pace in his game. It's not that easy for a Brazilian to adapt to English football in the first season, but he's done it already - and in a new position.'

Anderson merely emphasises the learning process, arguing that it will be another six or seven years before he becomes 'a great, professional player'. As the commentator said, inacreditÃ¡vel.

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Thoughts people? If he wrote a autobiography, it would be a bestseller imo!

Here is a link to the vid they were talking about: http://youtube.com/watch?v=ftiEqtHjzPI

And this is a vid of Anderson vs Aston Villa: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YLC5I3orto

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