Six of our national team’s 11 starters were raised without their dad around

Brazil is in the quarter-finals of the World Cup, yay! The 2-0 victory over Mexico secured our place among the eight best teams in the world!

Today was not Gabriel Jesus’ goal day, but you may have noticed that, whenever he scores a goal, the striker celebrates by making a telephone signal (thumb to ear, little finger to mouth). It is “Hello, mother!”, a tribute to Vera Lúcia, the mother who raised him alone, with no sign of his father and three brothers. Our number 9 never tires of repeating that he only got where he got because of Ms. Vera.

“She was both father and mother to me when I was growing up. I remember that, when I was playing for Pequeninos, I saw some children after the games with their parents, and I was alone. That was heavy for me. Tagged me. But now, when someone asks about my father, I say that my mother is my father. She did everything for me and my brothers”, she declared in an emotional testimonial to “The Players’ Tribune”.

Miranda’s mother also raised her children – 12 children – alone. But in this case, the reason was widowhood: the children’s father died when the player was 11 years old.

In addition to Gabriel Jesus and Miranda, four other holders of the Brazilian soccer team who are in the 2018 World Cup were raised by single mothers, without their biological father around: Paulinho, Thiago Silva, Marcelo and Casemiro.

Reflection of the Brazilian reality

Although the selection of the soccer team presents a slightly larger proportion than that of Brazil, it is symptomatic that public figures begin to appear who have grown up without the presence of the biological father.

According to the most recent data from the IBGE (2015), 11.6 million Brazilian households are composed of mother and children only, which is equivalent to 16.3% of all family arrangements – here, situations in which there are no children. In the detailed analysis of families in which children are involved – childless couples and people living alone are disregarded – the proportion of single mothers is 26.8%.

The father? It disappeared, nobody knows, nobody saw it.

When Others Take on the Parent Role

Let’s go back to the cases of our national team players, then.

Descendant of Xukuru Indians from Pesqueira, in the interior of Pernambuco, Paulinho barely had time to meet his father after he was born, in São Paulo: José Paulo separated from Erica, the player’s mother, shortly after giving birth. Until Paulinho was 13, his father still lived in São Paulo, but they never saw each other, they only spoke on the phone. After the father returned to his hometown, contact ceased altogether. His mother, passionate about soccer, pushed him to become a player. In the middle of the way, Paulinho’s stepfather entered, who served as a model for the boy.

Who also had a stepfather as a male reference was defender Thiago Silva. His father disappeared into the world when his son was 5 years old – in fact, the player never heard from him. Angela, his mother, married Valdomiro after a while, who took on responsibilities for the upbringing of her children.

Defender Marcelo had his grandfather as a male role model, with whom he started living at the age of four, since his parents separated shortly after he was born. Pedro took his grandson to training at Fluminense and was in the stands at every game. He died in 2014, during the World Cup in Brazil.

As for Casemiro, the reference was a football coach. His father left home when he was 3 years old and his mother, Magda, raised the three children alone in São José dos Campos (SP). When Casemiro started training at a school in the city, coach Nilton Moreira took on the responsibility of helping the boy move forward in football and in life.

On the other hand, parents present

But there are good and present parents, of course there are!

Neymar is the most notorious recent case of a football player who got where he got because of his father. Since his youth days at Santos, Neymar-father managed his son’s career and finances. Reginaldo Fino, one of the number 10’s first coaches, has already stated that Neymar only managed to be the successful player he is because he knew that, off the field, his father took care of everything for him.

And Fagner’s family fits into a very rare Brazilian statistic: because he was raised only by his father – his mother left, cutting off contact with his son –, the right-back is part of the 3.6% of households Brazilians where parents raise children alone. The rarity of rarity.