The Hindu : Sport / Football : Figo — from humble beginnings to a star

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Jun 09, 2004

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Sport - Football

Figo — from humble beginnings to a star

By Gonzalo Espariz

LISBON, JUNE 8. There's no Armani or Gucci to be seen in Cova da Piedade, no Ferraris or Porsches in the streets and no luxury houses. In fact it is difficult to find any building upon which the passage of time has not left its mark.

But the people there are open-hearted, good-natured and loquacious. It was into this ambience that Luis Figo, the most famous Portuguese football player since the legendary Eusebio, was born and grew up.

Cova da Piedade is a mainly working class area, located in Almada, south of the river Tajo, facing Lisbon. Home to some 36,000 people, before the construction of the impressive "25th of April" bridge, an excursion into the city centre took an hour and a half and involved travel by ferry and several buses.

Now Almada is just another suburb of Portugal's principal city.

Like many other emigrants before them, Antonio Caeiro Figo and Maria Joana Pestana Madeira came to the capital at the beginning of the 1970s from their native Alentejo in search of prosperity.

Little did they know then, that their offspring, Luis Filipe Madeira Caeiro Figo, born on November 4, 1972, would go on to be Almada's most famous son.

Little Luis first started to kick a ball around on a five-a-side football pitch just behind his house. There he spent many an afternoon enjoying himself and, without knowing it himself, developing and polishing a style which would take him far away from his roots.

It was on this pitch, surrounded by high fences, that 11-year-old Luis was discovered by Jose Silva and Joao Santos, sport director and trainer respectively of "Os Pastilhas", a tiny team which played in the local league.

It took a lot of effort on both their parts to convince Luis' mother, who feared that his studies would suffer. But in the end they managed to get him to sign his first registration form allowing him to take part in official league play.

The start of Figo's career was marked by contradictions. His team was made up of first-year secondary school pupils and confrontation with much larger and stronger opponents ended mostly in disaster. That Os Pastilhas side finished the season in last place with one single victory, one draw and 20 defeats.

However, it was obvious that Figo was a star in the making.

"One could see that there was something exceptional about him. He was the leader in a team of players two years older than himself. And Luis was always able to break away from his opponents. His style then was the same as today," Silva, current manager of the club said.

His qualities remain engraved in the memories of many who saw him.

"Even then he was a marvel," relates Manuel Branquinho, president of Club Deportivo de Cova da Piedade, one of Os Pastilhas' opponents.

Barreirense, the club which finished as champion that year, wanted to sign Figo when Os Pastilhas ceased entering teams for 11-a-side competition due to lack of funds.

But Antonio Caeiro Figo had other plans for his son. As a fan of Benfica and regular visitor to the first team training sessions, he dreamed of seeing his firstborn pull on the famous dark red strip. However, the most popular team in Portugal refused his services because they considered him "too small".

His heart heavy with pain, father Figo, a dealer in hunting and fishing equipment, took his son off to Benfica's eternal rival Sporting Lisbon, who saw no problems at all with his age and size and set about polishing the young diamond.

The rest of Luis' career is well documented and impressive. He made his first division debut at 16 in the green and white strip of Sporting and was a junior World Cup winner with Portugal in 1989 and 1991.

He introduced himself to the world in a UEFA Cup qualifier against Real Madrid in 1994, transferred to Barcelona in 1995 and in 2000 became, at that time, the most expensive transfer in the history of football, moving for $60 million to Real Madrid.

International recognition for Figo was also forthcoming: The Golden Ball (Balon de Oro) award in 2000 and FIFA Best Player prize 2001 took him to the top of the game.

All this was a far cry from his humble origins, when as a little kid, blonde as he was then, his only thought was to dribble past a player 20 centimetres larger than himself on the dusty pitch at Cova da Piedade, the only one in the vicinity. — DPA

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