‘Slight Return’ Pato’s lost weekend in Brazil

As former Brazilian wonderkid Alexandre Pato prepares for his highly anticipated return to European football with Chelsea, Tim Stillman looks back at his wilderness years in his homeland…

After a dizzying succession of injuries and a controversial relationship with Silvio Berlusconi’s daughter, Alexandre Pato returned to Brazil in January 2013. He signed with São Paulo club Corinthians with the intention of rebuilding a career that had once promised so much. The short term aim would have been to rediscover his touch and his fitness with Corinthians and attract European suitors.

This would very much have been in Corinthians’ financial planning when they sanctioned the purchase of the Pato Branco born forward. Whilst ‘Pato’ is indeed Portuguese for ‘duck’, his nomenclature derives from his city of birth. His actual name, Alexandre Rodrigues da Silva, is a string of very popular and widely used Brazilian names, so ‘Pato’ is used to identify him in the same way that Ronaldinho is called ‘Ronaldinho Gaucho’ and the two famous Juninho’s are known as Juninho Paulista (of Middlesbrough fame) and Juninho Pernambucano (who played for Lyon). Continue reading

Can Brazil make home advantage count in 2014?

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With the countdown well under way for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, Rory Macdowall assesses the host’s chances of winning the tournament on home soil…

On 16th July 1950 in Rio de Janeiro’s Maracana, Alcides Ghiggia completed a storming run to fire in a goal at the near post, securing a Uruguayan victory in that year’s World Cup. The goal was met with near silence in a primarily Brazilian crowd of 173,850, stunned into submission by one of the greatest upsets in football history. The loss burned in the hearts of the biggest footballing nation on the planet, their right to win thwarted by their tiny neighbour to the south.

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