TURKISH
24th November 2008, 03:29 PM
I swiped it from coys from a poster but a good read but long.
Here's a long (but well worth reading) article by Luke Nicoli from the Sept. edition of the official Spurs. mag Hotspur
========================
When Heurelho Gomes first played at White Hart Lane he fell in love with the place. Now he wants to help Spurs into the Champions League
Aloof, eccentric and, in some instances, downright crazy: these are the idiosyncrasies associated with the goalkeeping position. A harsh assessment maybe, but who in their right mind would relish stopping a ball that, in some instances, can fly in your direction at 80 mph? And if it all goes wrong? Well, we know there is only one villain of the piece.
So, to discover the new Spurs number one, Heurelho Gomes, likes nothing better than leaping above his crossbar before kick-off, once injured himself while celebrating a team-mate's goal, did not even kick a football until he went to secondary school, and spent his formative years on a farm without electricity, you could be forgiven for thinking the Brazilian would fit snugly into the category marked 'different'.
Well, you'd be wrong. On meeting Gomes, you'd be hard pressed to find a more calm, assured and thoroughly amiable individual. His life experiences, he explains, have made him the rounded - probably not the best turn of phrase given his immense and wiry frame - individual he is today. An individual whose exploits at PSV Eindhoven these past few seasons have made him one of the best keepers in world football, and the reason why Juande Ramos was so keen to bring him to the Lane.
"You might read about my background, my mannerisms, and you might think I'm a little eccentric, but you'd be wrong," insists the 27-year-old. "I'm just a guy who likes to be happy and I come to work with a smile on my face. I appreciate what I've got now because it hasn't always been that way for me."
Indeed, Heurelho da Silva Gomes was born in Joao Pinheiro, an agricultural province in the state of Minas Gerais, Southeast Brazil. His parents, Antonio and Maria, worked and lived on a farm, cultivating crops and selling livestock: Times were hard and Heurelho's earliest recollections are not of kicking footballs but of milking cows. "I remember helping my father with the animals, the cows, the cleaning out of pens, and helping to harvest the crops," he recalls. "We had very little money, we had no electricity, and the only time I saw a TV was if I went to the home of one of my friends. It was a very sheltered upbringing. Football is a way of life for most kids in Brazil, but it wasn't for me."
In a bid to escape the hardships of life and give Gomes and his sister Cleide hope of a better future, the family migrated to the nearest city, Canoeiros. With their life savings in tow, they purchased the most basic of small houses. "It was literally bricks and a roof," Gomes recalls. And it was Maria who initially found herself the breadwinner, leaving the home at 5 am every morning to work for a reforestation company.
At the age of 11 it was off to secondary school for Heurelho in the State's biggest city, Tres Marias, and life in a dormitory with his sister. "It was 40 minutes from our home by car, so we stayed in a small room with a kitchen and toilet. My sister slept on the bed, I slept on the floor. You can understand a little more why I appreciate the life I have now. To have gone through these sacrifices have made me the person I am and appreciate what I have today."
But Spurs, PSV and Brazil have the Tectonic Brandao Vilela secondary school to thank for spawning a star of the future. It was here that he first kicked a football. Kick being the operative word as in those days. Gomes fancied himself as the new Careca. "I wasn't particularly big at secondary school so I played as a striker," he smiles. "Romario and Careca were my playground heroes but I didn't start playing for the school team until I was 14, which was quite late, I know.
"But I was an average striker, nothing special. Then at the age of 15 or 16 I really started to shoot up. I quickly grew to 6ft tall, then a bit more, and it was then that I started playing as a goalkeeper. But it was a position that came to me by accident. I never wanted to play there. I always wanted the adulation of scoring goals!"
Gomes was certainly a reluctant hero. With the family now relocated to another city, Sete Lagoas. the local team Uniao Belo Vale was trying out players for a local beach tournament. Heurelho turned up hoping for a starring role in attack, only to discover that the team lacked a goalkeeper. The coach, taken aback by this tall, gangling frame in front of him, immediately put Gomes in goal. The player didn't realise it at the time, but the road to fame and fortune had begun.
"I'd never even played in goal before," he laughs. "But I played well in the first game and was asked to carry on for the remainder of the tournament. I found it was something that came quite naturally to me and I started earning a reputation for myself. I played for a few junior teams and it was always as a goalkeeper from then on. I had to accept it, my days as a star striker would never come!"
At 17, Gomes was invited to train with the Minas Gerais State Third Division side Democrata. Without enough money for the four-mile bus ride, he walked every day to and from training, and this committed attitude did not go unnoticed by the club's coaching staff.
"They could see my determination and my willingness to succeed," he says of his daily treks. "To do that journey made me mentally stronger as a person, and on top of all this I still had to fit in my homework and studies as well. As one of the more mature boys there, I was also asked to look after the kitchen at the training ground as well. I was handed the key and had to go to the local bakery each day, pick up the bread and then butter the rolls on my return.
"Don't get me wrong, we had a proper cook, but they asked me because they knew I could be relied upon. It was an extra chore but I never complained; my thinking is the harder something is to attain, the more you value it. By this stage, I really wanted to make a career for myself in football and I knew that all these sacrifices would benefit me in the long term."
By 1998, Gomes had impressed to the point where he was invited to Toca da Raposa, literally The Fox's Den - the training base of leading Brazilian side Cruzeiro. Initially he played for the junior sides but his performances in training caught the eye of the first-team coach, a certain Luiz Felipe Scolari.
"It was a huge transition for me," he recalls. "Democrata was only a small club but now at Cruzeiro we had good facilities and I had a goalkeeping coach, which I never had before. I was still only 18 and I remember the coaches saying I had potential but still a lot to do. I was only the reserve keeper for the junior side, but then one day I was asked by Mr Scolari to join the first-team for training.
"It was amazing. I had leapfrogged the main junior keeper and here I was training with Dida, who was someone I looked up to and still do. Just to be involved gave me masses of confidence and I learned so much from Dida and Scolari in those early days. I knew I still had some way to go to become a first team player, but I was learning quickly."
With his technique vastly improved, Gomes was handed his big break under the guidance of Vanderlei Luxemburgo in 2002, and he maintained the number one spot for the next two years. During a purple patch for the club, he won the Brazilian State Championship, the Miniero Championship and the Cup of Brazil. "I have such happy memories of my time there," adds Gomes, who also made his Brazilian debut against Mexico during that period. "We had players like Edmundo, Alex, Freddy Rincon, Cris... they were all in the team at the time. Great players who have achieved great careers."
Heurelho's form and subsequent call up to the national team began to turn heads in Europe. Barcelona and Milan were reported to have cast a watchful eye over him, yet it was PSV scout Piet de Visser who rubberstamped his move to Holland. But just as he was set to put pen to paper, disaster struck. "I was playing in a Libertadores Cup game when someone stood on my right hand. The x-rays showed a fracture and, although I was confident it would heal, I was really worried that I might not get the contract with PSV.
"There were even stories in the media, saying that my career might be over because of the injury, but that was never the case. I knew I would recover fully and I'm just grateful that PSV continued to stick by me. I was delighted to come to Europe: a new life, a new adventure. In many ways I felt the same as I felt when I left the farm for the city all those years ago."
Here's a long (but well worth reading) article by Luke Nicoli from the Sept. edition of the official Spurs. mag Hotspur
========================
When Heurelho Gomes first played at White Hart Lane he fell in love with the place. Now he wants to help Spurs into the Champions League
Aloof, eccentric and, in some instances, downright crazy: these are the idiosyncrasies associated with the goalkeeping position. A harsh assessment maybe, but who in their right mind would relish stopping a ball that, in some instances, can fly in your direction at 80 mph? And if it all goes wrong? Well, we know there is only one villain of the piece.
So, to discover the new Spurs number one, Heurelho Gomes, likes nothing better than leaping above his crossbar before kick-off, once injured himself while celebrating a team-mate's goal, did not even kick a football until he went to secondary school, and spent his formative years on a farm without electricity, you could be forgiven for thinking the Brazilian would fit snugly into the category marked 'different'.
Well, you'd be wrong. On meeting Gomes, you'd be hard pressed to find a more calm, assured and thoroughly amiable individual. His life experiences, he explains, have made him the rounded - probably not the best turn of phrase given his immense and wiry frame - individual he is today. An individual whose exploits at PSV Eindhoven these past few seasons have made him one of the best keepers in world football, and the reason why Juande Ramos was so keen to bring him to the Lane.
"You might read about my background, my mannerisms, and you might think I'm a little eccentric, but you'd be wrong," insists the 27-year-old. "I'm just a guy who likes to be happy and I come to work with a smile on my face. I appreciate what I've got now because it hasn't always been that way for me."
Indeed, Heurelho da Silva Gomes was born in Joao Pinheiro, an agricultural province in the state of Minas Gerais, Southeast Brazil. His parents, Antonio and Maria, worked and lived on a farm, cultivating crops and selling livestock: Times were hard and Heurelho's earliest recollections are not of kicking footballs but of milking cows. "I remember helping my father with the animals, the cows, the cleaning out of pens, and helping to harvest the crops," he recalls. "We had very little money, we had no electricity, and the only time I saw a TV was if I went to the home of one of my friends. It was a very sheltered upbringing. Football is a way of life for most kids in Brazil, but it wasn't for me."
In a bid to escape the hardships of life and give Gomes and his sister Cleide hope of a better future, the family migrated to the nearest city, Canoeiros. With their life savings in tow, they purchased the most basic of small houses. "It was literally bricks and a roof," Gomes recalls. And it was Maria who initially found herself the breadwinner, leaving the home at 5 am every morning to work for a reforestation company.
At the age of 11 it was off to secondary school for Heurelho in the State's biggest city, Tres Marias, and life in a dormitory with his sister. "It was 40 minutes from our home by car, so we stayed in a small room with a kitchen and toilet. My sister slept on the bed, I slept on the floor. You can understand a little more why I appreciate the life I have now. To have gone through these sacrifices have made me the person I am and appreciate what I have today."
But Spurs, PSV and Brazil have the Tectonic Brandao Vilela secondary school to thank for spawning a star of the future. It was here that he first kicked a football. Kick being the operative word as in those days. Gomes fancied himself as the new Careca. "I wasn't particularly big at secondary school so I played as a striker," he smiles. "Romario and Careca were my playground heroes but I didn't start playing for the school team until I was 14, which was quite late, I know.
"But I was an average striker, nothing special. Then at the age of 15 or 16 I really started to shoot up. I quickly grew to 6ft tall, then a bit more, and it was then that I started playing as a goalkeeper. But it was a position that came to me by accident. I never wanted to play there. I always wanted the adulation of scoring goals!"
Gomes was certainly a reluctant hero. With the family now relocated to another city, Sete Lagoas. the local team Uniao Belo Vale was trying out players for a local beach tournament. Heurelho turned up hoping for a starring role in attack, only to discover that the team lacked a goalkeeper. The coach, taken aback by this tall, gangling frame in front of him, immediately put Gomes in goal. The player didn't realise it at the time, but the road to fame and fortune had begun.
"I'd never even played in goal before," he laughs. "But I played well in the first game and was asked to carry on for the remainder of the tournament. I found it was something that came quite naturally to me and I started earning a reputation for myself. I played for a few junior teams and it was always as a goalkeeper from then on. I had to accept it, my days as a star striker would never come!"
At 17, Gomes was invited to train with the Minas Gerais State Third Division side Democrata. Without enough money for the four-mile bus ride, he walked every day to and from training, and this committed attitude did not go unnoticed by the club's coaching staff.
"They could see my determination and my willingness to succeed," he says of his daily treks. "To do that journey made me mentally stronger as a person, and on top of all this I still had to fit in my homework and studies as well. As one of the more mature boys there, I was also asked to look after the kitchen at the training ground as well. I was handed the key and had to go to the local bakery each day, pick up the bread and then butter the rolls on my return.
"Don't get me wrong, we had a proper cook, but they asked me because they knew I could be relied upon. It was an extra chore but I never complained; my thinking is the harder something is to attain, the more you value it. By this stage, I really wanted to make a career for myself in football and I knew that all these sacrifices would benefit me in the long term."
By 1998, Gomes had impressed to the point where he was invited to Toca da Raposa, literally The Fox's Den - the training base of leading Brazilian side Cruzeiro. Initially he played for the junior sides but his performances in training caught the eye of the first-team coach, a certain Luiz Felipe Scolari.
"It was a huge transition for me," he recalls. "Democrata was only a small club but now at Cruzeiro we had good facilities and I had a goalkeeping coach, which I never had before. I was still only 18 and I remember the coaches saying I had potential but still a lot to do. I was only the reserve keeper for the junior side, but then one day I was asked by Mr Scolari to join the first-team for training.
"It was amazing. I had leapfrogged the main junior keeper and here I was training with Dida, who was someone I looked up to and still do. Just to be involved gave me masses of confidence and I learned so much from Dida and Scolari in those early days. I knew I still had some way to go to become a first team player, but I was learning quickly."
With his technique vastly improved, Gomes was handed his big break under the guidance of Vanderlei Luxemburgo in 2002, and he maintained the number one spot for the next two years. During a purple patch for the club, he won the Brazilian State Championship, the Miniero Championship and the Cup of Brazil. "I have such happy memories of my time there," adds Gomes, who also made his Brazilian debut against Mexico during that period. "We had players like Edmundo, Alex, Freddy Rincon, Cris... they were all in the team at the time. Great players who have achieved great careers."
Heurelho's form and subsequent call up to the national team began to turn heads in Europe. Barcelona and Milan were reported to have cast a watchful eye over him, yet it was PSV scout Piet de Visser who rubberstamped his move to Holland. But just as he was set to put pen to paper, disaster struck. "I was playing in a Libertadores Cup game when someone stood on my right hand. The x-rays showed a fracture and, although I was confident it would heal, I was really worried that I might not get the contract with PSV.
"There were even stories in the media, saying that my career might be over because of the injury, but that was never the case. I knew I would recover fully and I'm just grateful that PSV continued to stick by me. I was delighted to come to Europe: a new life, a new adventure. In many ways I felt the same as I felt when I left the farm for the city all those years ago."