New boy: Manchester United raised eyebrows by
plucking Bebe from obscurity - but those who know him say Reds fans
are in for a treat
Manchester United’s new
£7.5million forward Bebe flew from England to Lisbon with his Old
Trafford team-mate Nani on Sunday morning, following his first
call-up to the Portugal Under 21 squad.
Nani continued his journey
north to meet up with his country’s full squad near
Porto.
Bebe, however, took a taxi to
the remote southern village of Santo Antao do Tojal and spent the
night at the homeless shelter that was his home until just two
months ago. Bebe, a man of 20, wanted to sleep among his friends at
the Casa do Gaiato for one last time before his life changed
forever.
‘He came and had lunch here
with me and my wife and children,’ the shelter’s director, Jose
Joao, told Sportsmail this
week. ‘He shook hands with every single person here. He thanked
them.
‘He spent the night here and
the next morning someone from the Football Federation picked him
up. I think he wanted to say goodbye properly. He lived here with
us for eight years. He knows that without this place he would have
been just another lost kid.’
Owned and funded by the
Catholic church for 62 years, Casa do Gaiato sits in generous, if
rudimentary, grounds some 20 kilometres outside Lisbon. It is
currently home to 80 young males between the ages of four and 25.
It is here that Bebe learned to read and write. Here, on a dusty
pitch, that he learned to play football. Others from the shelter
have made good, too.
‘We’ve had teachers, lawyers
and businessmen emerge from here,’ smiled Joao. ‘We even had an
actor. But this is the first one like Bebe.’ Bebe’s journey from
the third division of Portuguese football to the Barclays Premier
League is one of the more remarkable sporting stories of
recent years. Just as inspiring is the fact that he reached
adulthood at all.
Abandoned as a young child by
his father Francisco and his mother Deolinda, Bebe — christened
Tiago Manuel Dias Correia — was being raised by his grandmother in
a rough Lisbon suburb when a court order delivered him into the
care of the church at the age of 12.
Joao explained: ‘He was in
danger. Kids in that area were locked into street life. Bebe was
about to enter oblivion. He came here and had virtually no
schooling. But we have looked after him and raised him and now
football has made him a man.
Father figure: After spending eight years in his care,
Jose Joao feels Bebe will blossom at Manchester United
‘At the end of last season
when Guimaraes [of Portugal’s Premier League] signed him he told me
he did not want to go, to leave the shelter.
‘I told him he had to go, that
he had to make something of his life. Bebe cried and said: ‘‘You
are trying to get rid of me’’. But I told him it was time to go,
that it was time for his life to begin for real.
‘Even in the summer, when he
was at a pre-season training camp with Guimaraes, he would come
here to sleep if he had a day off. It was 200km away but he came
anyway.’
Given his background and his
obvious dependency on his friends and mentors at the shelter, it is
tempting to wonder just how Bebe will cope in Manchester. There
will be no comforting trips ‘home’. His private bedroom — at one
end of a 15-bed dormitory — was given to him a year ago as a sign
of his seniority. Now, it belongs to somebody else.
‘There are concerns but we
feel he is going to the right club,’ said Joao. ‘In Manchester he
will be OK. We think his grandmother may travel there to be with
him. We hope so.
‘We have heard about Sir Alex
Ferguson. He is a leader and that is what Bebe needs. He is tall
and strong now but he is just a kid. He needs to be
loved.’
From rags to riches: The young Bebe has grown into a
role model for children
Bebe’s grandmother, Ilda
Romana, has attempted to provide some stability over the course of
his difficult young life. He has ‘senhorinha’ — little lady —
tattooed on his arm. His mother lives in northern Portugal and has
never been to see him play. His father has disappeared.
Recommended to the amateur
club Loures, local to the shelter, four years ago, Bebe played
there for two years before a 16,000 euros move to Estrela da
Amadora in downtown Lisbon.
After two seasons in the
club’s junior teams, his form in Portugal’s semi-professional
division three last season led him to Guimaraes and then — without
playing a competitive game for them — to United. In England — on a
wage of £12,000 a week — life will certainly be
different.
Here in the hot, dusty
Portuguese countryside, a daily routine of prayer, schoolwork and
discipline has shaped him. He came here as an uneducated
12-year-old with poor prospects. He leaves with the chance to be
the next Manchester United superstar.
Write caption here
The car park of the Estadio
Jose Gomes in the poor Reboleira suburb of Lisbon is littered with
used condoms and drugs paraphernalia.
Inside the tiny, rundown
ground, weeds poke through the tarmac. This is where, just four
months ago, the young forward they call Bebe played his last
competitive game of football for Estrela da Amadora.
He walked out five games
before the end of last season because the club — now about to go
bankrupt — could not afford to pay his 300-euro weekly wage. Jorge
Paxaio was Estrela’s coach last season. He learned of Bebe’s
transfer to England early last month when the forward sent him a
‘thank you’ text message.
‘Manchester United are getting
a truly remarkable kid,’ said the likeable Paxaio, smiling as he
spoke to Sportsmail.
‘Remember that until he was 16 he was just playing with his
friends. He has developed incredibly quickly. The first time he
plays for United — and I am sure he will make it there — people
will notice him because he is different. He has skills that not
many players in that League have.
‘He is also physically
imposing. He will be like [Cristiano] Ronaldo in that point of
view. But you will have to wait for him to be ready. I don’t just
mean in football terms, but mentally.
‘One day he had nothing and
then the next day he had everything. That will be a shock to him,
even if he hasn’t realised it yet. He was living in the shelter
every day he was with us. He travelled in by public transport. He
was like a child in that way.’
Confident: Jorge Paixao believes Bebe will flourish at
Old Trafford
Estrela were second in their
division when Bebe stopped playing there. Without their tall,
muscular forward, they lost their last five games and finished
10th. For much of the season, Bebe had been the only player getting
paid. Eventually his wage was stopped, too.
Bebe’s agent of last season,
Goncalo Reis, recalled: ‘His coach was always telling him that he
had to do better as he was the only one that was being paid. ‘At
19, that was not fair. In the dressing-room he was the only one
with the new shoes and the new shirt.
‘His team-mates had children
and wives and weren’t getting paid. It was hard for the kid but
this pressure made him stronger. He coped with it.
‘I think that will help him
when he reaches Old Trafford. He will not be scared.’
Certainly, life at Estrela was
never straightforward for Bebe. United manager Ferguson suggested
last week that his new signing needs to develop physically,
but there was little opportunity for that last season.
Coach Paxaio, now with another
Lisbon club, Mafra, revealed: ‘We used to have a gym and Bebe was
in there often. But then one day the players turned up and all the
equipment had gone. The club had sold it to pay off
debts.
Pastures new: The dilapidated stadium outside Lisbon,
where he played until four months ago, is a far cry from Old
Trafford
‘It will be a different world
at United. I only had four staff, no dieticians or anything like
that. Bebe used to eat his meals at the shelter so I couldn’t
control what he was eating. He got food poisoning twice. But he was
our diamond, our jewel. Our problem was that we didn’t have anyone
else like him in the team.
‘That was the way it was. I
played two systems and both were used to get the best out of
him.’
As Bebe strides towards a new
life, Estrela’s would appear to be coming to an end. Their failure
to pay him towards the end of last season rendered a 1.2million
euro buy-out clause in his contract worthless and he went to
Guimaraes for free.
‘It makes me sad,’ added
Paxaio. ‘These things can only happen in Portugal. With that money
Estrela would not be bankrupt.
‘A good club is about to die.
It is wrong. But I am happy for Bebe, even if he can be a rebel
sometimes.
‘I spoke to him many times. I
told him that he had every chance of rising to the top but that he
also had the risk of allowing himself to be dragged
down.
‘He could be irresponsible and
things like that, but it was just due to his background. I told him
it was as easy to become a professional footballer as it was to go
on the streets to steal. I told him the choice was his. He made the
right choice.’
Urbane Goncalo Reis is the
small-time football agent who has just seen the deal of a lifetime
slip through his fingers. Sitting in the garden of the Lisbon
Marriott Hotel this week, he stirred the ice in his Pepsi and lots
of things went unsaid.
What is known, though, is
this. Until the end of Bebe’s time at Estrela da Amadora earlier
this year, Reis represented him.
Having recognised his talent
when he was a junior player, Reis used to buy Bebe his bus-passes
to get him from the Casa do Gaiato shelter to training every day.
Because it was a journey of two hours by bus, Reis would
sometimes take him in his car.
He organised and paid for
Bebe’s 18th birthday party and when he was selected for a Portugal
Under 20 get-together Reis bought him new boots, clothes and
luggage.
‘I didn’t want him to look out
of place and feel small,’ said Reis. Now Bebe is at Manchester
United under the care and guidance of Portuguese super-agent Jorge
Mendes. Reis is no longer involved.
The one that got away: Goncalo Reis is on the lookout
for the new Bebe
How Bebe came to change agents
is not clear. Reis is vague on the matter and Mendes is not accused
of breaking any rules.
Reis certainly knows Bebe
better than most. He has, for example, always been welcomed by
staff at Casa do Gaiato.
‘The trip to training every
day was not easy,’ he recalled. ‘It showed his dedication. ‘After
training he would go to the shelter and help with the cleaning and
things. They all pray at the end of the day. It’s an
obligation.
‘I don’t feel let down that I
am not involved any more. That’s life. But I used to do a lot for
him. All he has, I gave him.’
Reis has read reports from
England that Bebe has not yet been selected for United’s reserves.
The implied criticism irritates him.
‘It’s crazy that people say he
is not good enough for the reserves,’ he said. ‘I know the
qualities of Bebe and one day he will jump into the first team. It
won’t be easy but he will get his space.
‘He will not be as good as
Ronaldo but will be better than Nani. Somewhere in between. But he
will be humble and he will learn. He will be like a little boy with
Ferguson. He will just wait for the orders. Then, one day, he will
explode on the field.’
If and when Bebe does make his
impact, Reis’s only benefit will be an adrenaline shot to his
pride. Is he angry?
‘I am moving on,’ he said. ‘I
have some new boys. Hopefully I will find another Bebe.’
Back at Casa do Gaiato, a
skinny teenager kicks at the dust in his sandals and shorts. He
loiters in the searing afternoon sun. His name is
Adilson.
Once rated as a better young
football prospect than Bebe, he also joined the junior ranks of the
Estrela da Amadora club in Lisbon.
For Adilson, though, the dream
died. He never made it because he simply stopped
growing.
In the shelter he is safe and
he is loved. Beyond that, though, his future is
uncertain.
