Bébé’s Move to Manchester United: A True Rags to Riches Football Fairytale
The recent signing of the Portuguese footballer Bébé (Tiago Manuel Dias Correia) to Manchester United has come as a real shock to the football world. Before being snapped up by the English mega club, the young football player was unknown outside his home country. Coming from very humble beginnings to landing a major deal in one of the biggest football teams in the world is a dream come true for Bébé. His story is one of going from abject poverty to making a better life for himself through football. Bébé will now have to wait and see if he can make a name for himself in England, because the club already has 5 strikers all vying for a starting spot.
Football sometimes has the power to change people’s lives; all we usually see on television are young men driving around in flashy cars wearing even flashier jewellery. But just sometimes, a footballer comes along who has come from underprivileged backgrounds and through the beautiful game has made a name for himself. A large number of African footballers go through the same thing; they come from absolute poverty, have some football skills, are signed by a youth team, go pro, and then get snapped up by a major European club and their future is set. Growing up, Bébé, or Tiago Manuel Dias Ferreira, which is his full name, spent a lot of time at an orphanage which also catered to underprivileged children in Loures, north of Lisbon. Showing skills with a football at an early age, he started to train to play the game on a concrete tennis court next to the orphanage which was his home. Due to the fact that he did not attend a football academy like a lot of young talent coming into the game these days, his playing style is old school, raw and powerful. He is an innovator of the ball and he also displays a level of creativity that most new players lack. He had to find creative ways to play because of his meagre means. While living in Loures, he was selected to play for the Homeless World Cup, which is an initiative for football players from underprivileged backgrounds.
Bébé started playing football at youth clubs in Lisbon before being signed to Estrela da Amadora, which was a small club in Lisbon. From there, he impressed scouts a great deal and he moved onto a bigger club, Vitória de Guimarães, which offered him a five year deal. He never made an appearance for the club because he was snapped up by Manchester United very soon after he was signed to Vitória following an impressive pre-season form. The interesting thing about this whole transfer saga is the fact that the player being transferred from here to there is like a commodity. When Vitória was asked about the deal, they said that selling him to Man U made financial sense for them and they made a lot of money out of the deal. It might even be the case that his old club Estrela make some money as well, because they discovered the young talent in the first place. It seems like clubs in Portugal and many other countries try to keep talent in their pockets just in case a big club from Europe comes knocking and then they can make a good deal of money from it in the process.
Now it will be up to the Portuguese player to find a place for himself in the already striker-heavy side that has signed him. Many of the top clubs have a habit of doing exactly that; they hoard and buy up a lot of good players and then bench them. It might be a strategy to make sure no one else can sign the hottest talent around and then be able to challenge them. Manchester United’s striking attack line-up is already full to the brim, with players like Wayne Rooney, Michael Owen, the Argentinean Javier Hernandez, Dimitar Berbatov and Federico Macheda. We will have to wait and see if Bébé can push these talented players aside and make a name for himself. He will also be looking to find a spot in the Portuguese International side and even there he will have a lot of competition on his hands to make a place for himself. The future looks bright for this young man and we will have to see what he can achieve in England in the coming years.
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