Robson played a major role in me settling relatively quickly too, and
it was a pleasure to cross paths with him. His human side is the most
remarkable characteristic of his personality. He’s such a generous man
that whenever he had to tell someone off, his lips started to tremble –
aggressiveness isn’t part of his make-up. It didn’t mean that he wasn’t
a demanding manager, though. On the contrary: he never accepted
anything less than 100 per cent from everyone and always wanted to
play good football, which suited me perfectly. I liked English football
from the start actually, because I had space. It was quick, for sure,
but I knew how to position myself on the pitch so that I had plenty of
room to play my game.
I always tried to think about what I’d do before getting the ball. As
English football was so fast, thinking ahead of the defenders gave me
an edge. With those great pitches, I only needed one touch to control
the ball. I used that first season to adapt to the conditions and style
of the league, and it paid off given that I stood out during the second
season. My feet were inflamed for a period in the first year – perhaps
because of the cold – and that hampered my game a little bit. I had to
put newspaper in my boots to warm them up!
Boro had some good personalities in their team, including guys like
Nigel Pearson who also played a key role in helping me to settle and
understand the dynamics of our dressing room. He’s a fantastic guy
but was really tough, too. One day he headed the post and my mouth
fell wide open – it was such a loud noise. He was crazy trying to head
the ball in from so close to the goal, and my immediate thoughts were,
‘When I get tackled by this guy, I’m f**ked’.
After coming 12th in 1995-96, Fabrizio Ravanelli and Emerson joined
us in the summer. Those ambitious signings were already planned in
the project that I was shown back in Brazil, and the impact they had
on our team was clear. In the beginning, though, my partnership with
Ravanelli was quite tense. He scored a hat-trick against Liverpool on
the opening day of the season, but was mad because he felt I should
have passed the ball to him on several occasions. We argued a lot on
the pitch that day, and it continued in the dressing room. Emerson had
to take my side, as I was at a disadvantage due to my size! Luckily for
me, no fight happened. I wasn’t jealous of Fabrizio at all – for me, the
more top players we had, the better it would be for the team.
Robson had to call a meeting between the three of us. Ravanelli still
didn’t speak English, so he was arguing in Italian. I didn’t speak it very
well, but I could pick out the odd word – whenever I didn’t like what
he’d said, I confronted him in Bryan’s room. Although it was tense, we
cleared everything up and our partnership clicked after that. Ravanelli
was such a clever forward moving between the lines, which perfectly
suited my playing style to carry the ball from midfield and wait for the
right moment to assist him.“WInnInG THE LEAGUE CUP AT BORO
MADE ME AS HAPPY AS WHEn I WOn
THE 2002 WORLD CUP WITH BRAZIL”
Clockwise from
below Juninho
was “treated like
a king” by Boro
fans; Emerson
always had the
Brazilian’s back
when Ravanelli
rowed; but they
soon cleared the
air and clickedBETWEEn
THE LInES