After watching Kaka for so long I decided that it was time to delve deeper into the story of the world’s current greatest player. I started finding stories on Kaka and slowly taking them in. What I found was nothing short of appropriate.

I was first told of Kaka by a Brazilian exchange student in 2002, the year of the Korea/Japan world cup. He went on to tell me that the next big thing would be the oddly named Sao Paolo star. I remember thinking that someone named Kaka is the next thing I need to keep an eye out for. That year the world cup was staged and the fresh faced Brazilian aged 20 collected his first piece of history, a world cup winner’s medal.

In this day and age you will struggle to find someone as complete on the football field as Ricky, the amazing thing is that he has adversity on top of adversity to overcome and has beaten odds most people would not. Before the age of 19 he was not known beyond his club. Fate as it seems scripted what happened next as he exploded on to the scene from the bench in the final of the 2001 Copa Rio for Sao Paulo scoring 2 brilliant goals. This however was his first game in over a year.

In the year 2000 Kaka smashed his head at the bottom of pool and Doctors informed him that he was extremely lucky as he was very close to being paralyzed. What happened from there could probably define the Superstar. Kaka rehabilitated and in the process told himself he would come back an even better player, studying footage and making himself a better player mentally. “It helped shape me, principally as a person, but as a player too. I learned that you have to be determined to give your best everyday, because the next day you might not be able to.” His attitude personified.

The fact that he did comeback a better player is inspiring. Football requires constant practice, improvement in match situations and Lots of on the field play, how then was this youngster confined to a year without the game able to comeback and begin his sparkling journey to the top of world football? I thought for ages and definitively came to the conclusion that football is so great because its not about ability or mentality alone, its about combining both to perform at your optimum level. Kaka might have always had the ability but when his life changed and his mentality shifted it was the starting point for his greatness.

As a young player Kaka’s ability was spotted early, he was however 2 years behind where he should have been in size due to a growth problem. Kaka was placed on a special diet form the age of 14 and told to work twice as hard in the gym, something he always did. His coaches have nothing but praise for his hard work. Despite his lack of physicality Kaka always held his own and had to develop his intelligence when he was thrown into age groups even above that of his own, A shrewd bit of coaching the first man to spot his talent Milton Cruz the famous Brazilian talent finder.

Kaka struggled in his own way and life was relatively easy going for him as a kid, he had no rags to riches tale and was nick named “Playboy” in training as he came from a relatively wealthy family. The nickname faded into obscurity when he started hosting any and all of his team mates in what many of them will refer to as their second homes. An open family they were always willing to help the underprivileged team mates who quite simply had nowhere else to go.

In 2003 Silvio Berlusconi paid the amazingly low fee of 5 million pounds to bring Kaka to Italy. 5 years have passed and you have to smile at what he has delivered. Milan love him, Brazil loves him and most importantly Football loves Kaka.