Early Life and Club Career
Though he was born in Irará, Bahia, Dida was raised in the smaller northern state of Alagoas. His footballing role models were goalkeepers Valdir Peres and Rinat Dasayev, whom he watched on television during the 1982 World Cup. A Flamengo fan, he helped form an amateur team called Flamenguinho ("Little Flamengo") at thirteen, which was composed of other boys from his neighborhood. His professional club career began in 1990 with Alagoas team Cruzeiro de Arapiraca (not to be confused with Cruzeiro EC). Two years later, he signed with hometown club Vitória and won the Bahia state championship in his first season. In 1993, Dida made 24 starts for Vitória after winning the Under-21 FIFA World Youth Championship as Brazil's first-choice.
Dida was acquired by Cruzeiro EC in 1994, where, in a span of five seasons, he won three Minas Gerais state titles, the 1996 Copa do Brasil, and the 1997 Copa Libertadores, along with a pair of Placar Bola de Prata awards as the top goalkeeper in the Campeonato Brasileiro Série A. But with this success soon came a desire to ply his trade in Europe, and in January 1999, he decided to leave Cruzeiro in order to sign with A.C. Milan.
Read more about this topic: Dida (footballer Born 1973)
Famous quotes containing the words early, life, club and/or career:
“[In early adolescence] she becomes acutely aware of herself as a being perceived by others, judged by others, though she herself is the harshest judge, quick to list her physical flaws, quick to undervalue and under-rate herself not only in terms of physical appearance but across a wide range of talents, capacities and even social status, whereas boys of the same age will cite their abilities, their talents and their social status pretty accurately.”
—Terri Apter (20th century)
“The facts of a person’s life will, like murder, come out.”
—Norman Sherry (b. 1925)
“Please accept my resignation. I don’t care to belong to any club that will have me as a member.”
—Groucho Marx (1895–1977)
“The problem, thus, is not whether or not women are to combine marriage and motherhood with work or career but how they are to do so—concomitantly in a two-role continuous pattern or sequentially in a pattern involving job or career discontinuities.”
—Jessie Bernard (20th century)