To top off an incredible year, JORGINHO once finished third in the Ballon d’Or award rankings.

Even more highly ranked than Kylian Mbappe and Cristiano Ronaldo—who placed sixth and ninth, respectively—was the former Chelsea player.

Jorginho was on top of the world after clinching third place at the Ballon d’Or

For the midfield player, who played for Veronas in Italy as a teenager for a meagre £17 a week, it wasn’t all glamorous festivities and accolades.

His first payment was so meagre that he could hardly buy a satisfying lunch.

Jorginho previously recounted to Players Tribune that he used to walk to Verona’s main square and grab a McDonald’s milkshake. He was fifteen years old at the time.

“I paid one euro for it. Chips? Burger? Man, put that out of your mind! Happy Meals was a programme for the wealthy children.

He continued by saying that he spent the rest of his meagre salary on essentials like cell phone credit and personal grooming.

Due to questionable practices by his former agent, who took £27,000 when the 29-year-old signed a contract with Veronas, Jorginho found himself in a financial bind.

For a year and a half, his terrible financial situation persisted until he met custodian Rafael Pinheiro, who guided the Italy Euro 2020 champion.

 

Rafael discovered Jorginho was being mistreated and informed the Veronas administration about it.

Rafael warned the Serie A team that they would need to offer Jorginho a competitive contract or face losing him.

In order to ensure that Jorginho was given a fair deal this time, the 39-year-old goaltender then served as a mediator between the organisation, Jorginho’s family, and the negotiations.

At that point, Jorginho’s life began to improve because he could finally buy the things he desired.

Rafael stated: “After this, he purchased his parents a house and a car so he could pursue his soccer career on his own terms. It was unthinkable to be a player on €20 a week.

Jorginho and Rafael

Jorginho, who is currently regarded as one of the best players in the world, isn’t too worried about getting a Happy Meal.

While he was at Veronas, he was called the “Wolf of the future,” but now days, his innate sense of the game has earned him the moniker “The Professor.”

“Highs and lows?” Seeing a glimmer of irregularity, he watches, smiles, and turns to face the Zoom call. You need to look at the figures; that is not how they are.

“I can accept the substantial criticism I received.” I can accept people’s opinions even when I don’t always agree with them.

It motivates me to work more, deliver better work, and keep pointing out their mistakes. I don’t get dissatisfied, but I do sometimes feel like I’m not getting enough credit. I believe that the squad and I are in a great spot at the moment, but we must avoid getting too comfortable. We have to endure and stay humble.

Jorginho is a self-aware football player. He has turned himself into a scapegoat since moving from Napoli to Stamford Bridge, but his positive outlook, pleasant nature, and self-assurance have not altered.

That’s understandable given that these traits have helped him go from a tiny coastal village in southern Brazil to an Italy international and a £50 million midfield player who is getting ready to play against Manchester City in the FA Cup semifinals as Real Madrid leads in the Champions League.

In his witty English, Jorginho says, “This still seems unbelievable.” Far from my starting point. When I was younger, playing professional football was all I wanted to be. Europe was a dream destination, despite its distance.

“I would have been overjoyed to play professional football in Brazil, but things got serious.” I’ve witnessed the possibilities and the way a dream changes as it approaches reality. “I need to push harder and harder,” you tell yourself, and that’s precisely what transpired.

At the age of 14, Jorginho left his village of Imbituba, Santa Catarina, to enroll in a football academy project in Brusque, which was located more than a hundred miles north. The journey began with this.

He remembers, “During my two years there, this was the hardest time.” There were classes in the evening after training sessions in the morning and afternoon for fifty young people. It was really difficult. I then noticed that a few guys were traveling to Italy and realized that this was my chance. I could not let it go.

However, the location wasn’t the ideal. We often had to eat the same food for three days in the winter since there wasn’t hot water for the showers. One day, my mother came to visit and saw how horrible and dirty the place was. “All right, I’ll take you out now. Let’s go, gather your stuff,” she said.

However, humans may adjust to their environment. And how would I describe the place where I was living? It was true that it was sHT, and as much as I detest to say it, I had become used to it. “Mum, this is my chance; I’m not giving up because the bathroom is dirty.”

“Oh, please,” she muttered. You don’t have to live this way. In the end, I said to her, “If you make me leave and I don’t play football, I will blame you forever.” She walked out, her eyes full of tears.

Rather than his father, Jorge Luiz Frello, Jorginho’s mother, Maria Tereza Freitas, is recognised for her son’s athletic prowess. She was a successful amateur football player.

He smiles and says, “My dad is always mad when I say this in interviews.” Usually, you get this kind of thing from your father, but my father was a terrible goalie and wasn’t very good on the field. My dad assisted me in numerous ways, but my mum was the one with talent.

He helped me prepare mentally and took a long time to talk about football careers, outlining the challenges and what to anticipate.

He tried to get me on a Brazilian squad and put me through a lot of hardships, among other sacrifices. When I was a little child, my mother took me to the beach for coaching, and she was highly critical of me when I made mistakes.

Maria Tereza did not hold back either when Jorginho, then 17 years old, returned from Italy at the age of 17 after spending 18 months in the Hellas Verona academy, where he was kept in an old monastery with other young athletes.

He says that the academy has regions designated for monks and scholars. Six of us got paid twenty euros a week for a year and a half, and we shared a small room.

Everyone there treated us with such kindness at all times. They really took good care of us, and the dinner was amazing. We needed to be inside the house by eleven o’clock. I had happy memories of my stay there.

Jorginho came to know Rafael Pinheiro, a custodian who was born in Brazil and is presently a Spezia player, after he was given permission to train with the first team.

After training, he saw that I was a 17-year-old Brazilian alone. He came up to me and said, “Hello, what are you doing here, what’s the situation?” and I told him my story. He went wild, telling him it wasn’t proper to live on 20 euros a week, alone, without his family.

Pinheiro persisted in making swift changes to the living arrangement and followed up with further questions, but Jorginho felt taken advantage of and lost faith in the system.

“It was my last football game,” he recalls. When I contacted my mom, I cried and said I wanted to go back to not playing football. “Mum, I’m a decent man who doesn’t want to be a part of this world. Dad and you have always taught me that becoming a football player is difficult and that there are bad individuals you can’t trust.

I wanted to be near to my friends because I felt like I could not trust anyone after being apart from them for so long. All she said, though, was, “You’re not coming back.” If you do come back, you’ll have to find somewhere else to stay since you’re not staying at my apartment.

‘She said, “You’ve been through so much, you lived in that situation, eating the same food for day after day with no hot water and now, because of money, you want to give up? No chance. You are training with the first team and you want to give up? I won’t let you”.

‘We talked for almost an hour and I was crying a lot on the phone and saying, “Mum, please let me come back” but she just refused. So thanks mum, thanks dad for that because they have played a big part.’

Jorginho has overcome enough challenges to be undaunted and now he is living a happy life at Arsenal with a salary of 110k pounds per week

‘We are working hard, everyone in the same direction. It is coming together at the right moment. But what we achieve this season is a consequence of how we move forward. If you get too comfortable you don’t achieve very much. If you are hungry to win, win, win then you can achieve something at the end of the season.’

Always looking up. Not down.