Early Life
Born in Paulista, Pernambuco, Brazil, Rivaldo had an extremely poor upbringing in the favelas of the port town of Recife. His physical appearance still marks the poverty he experienced in his childhood: malnourishment-caused bowleggedness and the loss of several teeth. Rivaldo began his professional career at the age of 16, when he signed with Paulistano, from Pernambuco, in 1989, despite the Paulistano coaches believing him too physically weak to succeed. Rivaldo's father Romildo was killed in a road accident in 1989, but Rivaldo went on to his first professional contract later that year.
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Famous quotes related to early life:
“Many a woman shudders ... at the terrible eclipse of those intellectual powers which in early life seemed prophetic of usefulness and happiness, hence the army of martyrs among our married and unmarried women who, not having cultivated a taste for science, art or literature, form a corps of nervous patients who make fortunes for agreeable physicians ...”
—Sarah M. Grimke (1792–1873)