The world’s most expensive goalkeeper was bullied as a child for being too short and fat to make it as a professional footballer, MailOnline can reveal.
Alisson Becker – who joined Liverpool today in a £66million record deal – was ribbed at school by his friends for being chubby.
His mother was so worried about Alisson’s weight as a child that she banned him from opening the fridge.
Alisson’s old goalkeeping coach said that his hard-up family threatened to take him out of his football academy in Port Alegre because they struggled to afford the buse fare on his father Jose’s meagre salary working in a shoe factory.
Daniel Pavan, who worked at Internacional FC’s football academy, said: ‘Alisson took a longer time to mature, and he was quite fat.
‘Because of his, his parents came to talk to me, saying they wanted to take him out of football. They thought that he didn’t have a future.
This chubby baby in his woolen baby grow and cheeky smile grew up to be the Brazil goalkeeper Alisson Becker who has signed for Liverpool for £66million in a world record deal
Ironically, despite his meteoric rise, Alisson’s older brother Muriel (right) who stood out among the boys as having the promise to become a professional footballer
Alisson’s parents Magali and Jose Becker (pictured) were worried that he was too short and fat to make it as a professional goalkeeper and threatened to pull him out of his football academy because it was too expensive to keep sending him on Jose’s wages working in a shoe factory
‘At that moment, I convinced them that he was technically differentiated, and yes, had a future. I argued that he had not fully matured yet.’
The coach’s belief paid off and within a year and a half Allison shot up to six foot three, and shed the extra kilos and was picked to play for Brazil’s under-15 squad.
Fast forward ten years and today Alisson, 25, is considered one of the best, not to mention sexiest, goalkeepers in the world.
Ironically it was Alisson’s weight problem which led him to choose playing in goal, according to those knew him as he grew up.
Living with his parents Magali and Jose Becker in the sprawling Novo Mundo estate in the poor Canudos district, he and his elder brother would play with other boys on a small sand pitch near their block, no 65.
Their obsession with football left neighbours exasperated.
Once, when the boys played football inside their flat when their parents had gone out, their running and jumping knocked out the chandelier from the ceiling of the flat underneath theirs, sending it crashing to the ground.
Alisson’s parents told his coach Daniel Pavan that they were going to pull him out of the Internacional FC’s football academy in Porto Alegre – but he convinced them to keep him on
The coach’s belief paid off and within a year and a half Allison (pictured) shot up to six foot three, and shed the extra kilos and was picked to play for Brazil’s under-15 squad
Aged nine, Alisson joined the football academy and began to make the trip with his brother (pictured) but because of his weight and lack of ball skills he spent most of the games in goal
And when one elderly resident angrily told them to stop playing on the pitch directly in front of his window, another neighbour, Vera Lucia Raubert, remembered telling him: ‘When one of them plays for Brazil one day, you’ll ask him for an autograph and he won’t give it to you!’.
Alisson recalled: ‘We lived in a very small flat, so there was a bed for Muriel above and mine below. So we would stay there in the little bedroom with a plastic ball, one on the bed as the goalie, the other crossing, shooting, in a tiny little flat.
‘We had a lot of complaints from neighbours, one time we knocked out the chandelier of the person who lived below us. So you can imagine what it was like.
‘We’d also play in the sand pitch in the condominium. I was always the smallest, and the smallest they would always send to the back, so I always went to goal.
‘I became taller. We always had fights, stuff of brothers, and because I was smaller, I would tell him that one day I would be bigger and I would get him.
‘What I most like is food. Up until the age of 15 I had a problem with weight. I hadn’t matured yet. When we mature we have that growth spurt, and I took a long time for me to have that. I was always, until 13 or 14, that largest. And at that age I started to level off, and that I had the growth spurt and I grew 17cm in one year.
‘So when I got taller and became slimmer and today I don’t have this problem anymore of fighting with the weighing scales. Now I can eat anything without worrying.’
But when Alisson was 14, it was his elder brother Muriel who stood out among the boys as having the promise to become a professional footballer.
Alisson lived with his parents Magali and Jose Becker (pictured) in the sprawling Novo Mundo estate of 1,368 flats in the poor Canudos district, he and his elder brother would play with other boys on a small sand pitch near their block, no 65
The brothers Alisson (left) and Muriel (right) would drive their neighbours mad where they grew up in Novo Mundo for playing football morning, noon and night
Living with his parents Magali and Jose Becker in the sprawling Novo Mundo estate in the poor Canudos district, he and his elder brother would play with other boys on a small sand pitch near their block, no 65 (pictured)
Muriel started taking a minubus every day from their home in Novo Hamburgo (pictured) to Inter’s ground in Porto Alegre, a distance of 27 miles, and although the club helped with equipment and fares, the extra costs stretched the family
In 2000, the then vice-president of top flight Internacional FC happened to see 13-year-old Muriel in goal during a game of beach football in Porto Alegre.
The director of the club’s youth development programme, Mario Cassel, later visited the family’s flat in Novo Mundo with the intention of convincing his parents to let Muriel train with them.
He remembered how younger brother Alisson would interrupt their conversation telling him he ‘also played football well’ – and Cassel fobbed him off by promising a place at the club’s football academy when he turned nine.
‘He wasn’t the biotype that we would recommend. Alisson was quite fat, there wasn’t the slightest indication that, in the future, there were emerge a footballer,’ said Cassel.
Muriel started taking a minubus every day from their home in Novo Hamburgo to Inter’s ground in Porto Alegre, a distance of 27 miles, and although the club helped with equipment and fares, the extra costs stretched the family.
Aged nine, Alisson joined the football academy and began to make the trip with his brother – but because of his weight and lack of ball skills he was soon spending most of the games in goal.
By the age of 13, the future Brazil goalkeeper was still chubby and short, and easily beaten by a high shot.
Before long, he was relegated to the bench, and sometimes didn’t even make the reserves, which caused his parents much anguish, especially because of the extra cost of sending him to Porto Alegre every day.
It was after a day’s training that they sought goalkeeper coach Pavan and told him they had decided it was time to break it to their younger son that he wouldn’t make it in the world of football, and take him out of the academy.
Fast forward ten years from Alisson’s struggles as as short, overweight teenager and his life now looks very different as he has become the world’s most expensive goalkeeper
In June 2015 Alisson broke millions of hearts when he married medical student Natalie Loewe, with whom he claims he ‘fell in love at first sight’ after they met in Porto Alegre
Alisson, who is an evangelical Christian like his Natalie, is said to live a quiet and simple life, preferring to stay at home with his wife and one-year-old daughter Heleninha
Amazingly, after listening to Pavan’s pleas to give him a little more time, within months he was starting to show the skills and intelligence that would one day make him the world’s most expensive keeper.
A year later, he was starting in Internacional’s youth team, before making his senior debut in February 2013, where he played for three years before moving to Roma, aged 23.
As his fame on the pitch grew, so did his army of female fans in Brazil who nicknamed him ‘goleiro gato – ‘the hottie goalie’, with hundreds rushing to take selfies with him at the end of games.
He was voted the sexiest footballer during the 2009 U17 World Cup in Nigeria, and this year, in another poll of Brazilians to find the sexiest football of the Russia World Cup, he came second behind Spain’s Gerard Pique.
But Alisson broke millions of hearts in June 2015 when he married medical student Natalie Loewe, with whom he claims he ‘fell in love at first sight’ after they met in Porto Alegre.
Alisson left a holiday with his wife Natalie and their daughter in Sardinia to sign for Liverpool from Roma to complete and incredible journey from the academy of Porto Alegre
Alisson, who is an evangelical Christian like his Natalie, is said to live a quiet and simple life, never seen frequenting clubs like many fellow footballers or showing off expensive cars or jewellery. Instead, he prefers to stay at home with his wife and one-year-old daughter Heleninha, his pastimes include playing the guitar and listening to Brazilian country music, while he prefers to invite friends for barbecues at his home than dine out.
The player is also said to never be without a gourd of traditional Chimarrao, a hot drink made from the leaves of the mate plant popular in southern Brazilian and drunk through a metal straw, often being shared with others.
He has told friends that the herbal drink, which he ships over from Brazil, is what gives him his goalkeeping strength – comparing it to Popeye and his spinach.
Desperate for a goalkeeper who will help them clinch the Premier League title next year, Jurgen Klopp will be sure to ensure he has plenty of supplies when he and his family make their long-awaited move to the Northwest.
