Player Profile: Kaka – Part 1
Ricardo Santos Leite, who is famous by the name Kaka, is a professional footballer who is currently playing for the Spanish side Real Madrid. He plays as a midfielder for the Spanish side and the dynamic midfielder is also a part of the Brazilian national team.
Kaka was only eight years old when he started to play football while performing for a local Brazilian club. During that age Kaka also used to play tennis but it was after a few years when Kaka decided to make a move towards professional football and joined the club Sao Paulo FC. When Kaka was fifteen, he was a part of the same Brazilian club and started to play in their youth academy. It was then that Kaka chose football as his career and decided to focus on it.
In the year 2003, Kaka decided to move to the Italian side AC Milan as both the clubs agreed on an 8.5 million Euros deal. While playing for AC Milan, Kaka managed to win the two most prestigious awards in the history of the game, Ballon d’Or and the FIFA World Player of the Year. He won both of these titles in the year 2007, which was the best year in his career and during Milan’s history as well.
After performing for the Italian side, and after helping them win the UEFA Champions League along with the Italian league, Kaka decided to join the Spanish side Real Madrid. Kaka was the first signing of Real Madrid during that year and a world record deal of $89 million was struck. This deal managed to surpass Zinedine Zidane’s record deal of $75 million. During that time Kaka was considered to be one of the best players in the world along with Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo. However, Ronaldo managed to break his record of being the most expensive player in Real Madrid during the same year; the Portuguese captain joined the Los Blancos from the English club Manchester United. Ronaldo signed a 90 million Euros deal with the Spanish giants thus becoming the most expensive player. This amount was just above Lionel Messi, Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Kaka.
Kaka is not only famous for his amazing football playing skills, in fact he is also famous for his humanitarian work. In 2004, Kaka became the youngest ambassador of the United Nations. He was appointed as an ambassador to the World Food Programme when he was only 24 years old.
Kaka’s early life started from Brasilia. His father was a civil engineer while his mother was a school teacher. His parents were rich enough to support his education and that was the reason why he had the financial support to help him become a good student along with a good football player.
He had a financially secure upbringing and that allowed him to focus on his school and football, both at the same time. Kaka’s younger brother Digao and his cousin Eduardo Delani, both are playing professional football as well and the main reason why they could also focus on football was because they were financially strong.
When the Brazilian number 10 was seven years old, his family decided to move to Sao Paulo where he joined a local school. The school saw the talented boy and decided to put him into a youth club called “Alphaville.” Along with his club, he managed to take his team to the final match of a local tournament and that was the turning point for him. The hometown club Sao Paulo FC decided to recruit young talent from that tournament and Kaka was noticed by the club officials; he then became a part of them as they decided to sign an agreement with the young kid.
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