So… listen to this… Everyone knows Pelé, Ronaldo, Ronaldinho,
Neymar… you get the point… But there is one name that’s known all across
Brazil that barely anyone can recognize anywhere else in the world… I’m talking about Dener… And at one point or another, his name was
mentioned alongside every single one of those players… Even Pelé’s very own son said that Dener
had the speed and skill of Neymar, the trickery and spirit of Ronaldinho and the efficiency
of Ronaldo… We’re talking about a player who impressed
Maradona so much that he had to stop mid match and applaud him… There’s a reason he was known as the “The
God of dribbling”... However, as you might have guessed by now… Dener passed away at 23… Only days after his move to Europe had been
finalized and precisely two months before the 1994 world cup started… Ronaldo was the last name on that squad list,
he didn’t play a single minute in the tournament and still it was enough to change his career
forever… Most believe that if Dener had been there,
his fate would have been similar to Ronaldo’s or any of those other players I’ve mentioned… But in the middle of all my research, there
was one moment that truly touched my heart… I heard someone claim that to this day people
are still naming their kids in his honor… So I looked up his name in a football database
and there it was, up till the day he debuted for the national team there were no other
players with that name, but after that date, there were dozens, with the vast majority
having been born in the years following his death… That’s how much Dener meant to the people
of Brazil, those who saw him never forgot what he was like, watching him play felt like
catching a glimpse of a shooting star… And the first glimpse of his talent came in
1986… having lost his father, 15 year old Dener had quit football so he could help his
mom with the bills… However that year, a huge youth futsal tournament
took place in his hometown… I’m talking… live broadcast on TV and 7 thousand people
in the stands for the final… there are champions league clubs averaging
a lower attendance than that… right now… So to the schools taking part in it, this
was serious business, which was why they sent out scouts to roam the streets looking for
poor kids willing to play for a few bucks and ended up offering Dener a “scholarship”...
except that well… Dener never showed up for a class, they were
just paying him to play futsal… What they weren’t expecting was that Dener
was well aware of how good he was… so he sort of just began extorting them, refusing
to show up for the matches if they didn’t pay him more and more… And by the time he got to that final, he was
making more money from futsal than he could ever make at a regular job… However soon that would mean nothing, as Dener
would take every trophy and award at the tournament, catching the eye of the likes of São Paulo
and Portuguesa, his childhood club… eventually signing for the latter… But once there, they quickly realized there
was a serious problem with him … Dener was a real street kid… most days he didn’t
even show up at home, his family would literally watch every single one of his matches, as
it was the only way they could make sure he was still okay… Even though most described Dener as a really
funny, laid back guy, his childhood friends were into some really heavy stuff and their
behavior rubbed off on him… It wasn’t rare to find stories of Dener
stealing football boots or getting seriously aggressive during football matches… And at one point, things actually got much
more serious than that, with the police arriving midway through a training session and taking
Dener into custody, accusing him of armed robbery along with 5 of his so-called friends… Only being released after two days and only
because the club convinced the court that they would watch over him… However, like many other players he would
perceive this as impunity rather than a second chance at life and things would eventually
get very serious once again… Still, soon after he was getting his debut
for the club… impressing two time silver boot winner Alfinete so much, that he asked
for his shirt at the end of the match, only for Dener to tell him: “It’s my debut
and you’re already asking me for my shirt, these things cost like 500 bucks”...
Regardless, 2 years later, no matter how good he was, Portuguesa were kind of broke, they
wouldn’t even fully promote him to the first team despite the fact that he had already
been playing with them for 2 seasons… But since Dener didn’t wanna leave his childhood
club, he orchestrated a fake transfer to Belgium, taking his bluff as far as driving to the
airport as if he was about to leave, leading the president to fold and hand him the contract… So yeah, even if morally questionable, it
was kind of genius… and it paid off massively for Portuguesa… Because soon after that contract was signed,
in a Paulist championship match, Dener took off from deep, dribbled past half the team
and scored what is to this day considered the greatest goal in the history of the club… However, right after it happened, one of his
teammates looked at him and asked “what in the world have you just done?”... and
Dener simply replied: “Stop acting dumb, I score goals like this every training session”... And after proving that right, with plenty
more iconic performances, the national team came calling… On his debut, Dener was so excited to come
in, that he ended up running into the pitch before the other player had come out… being
forced by the referee to repeat the whole process… but even those shenanigans weren’t
enough to throw him off his game… Despite only getting 6 minutes on the pitch,
he stepped into it, dropped deep and started the counter attack that allowed Brazil to
tie the match… It was a seriously promising start, but soon
after Dener missed one of the biggest matches of the season after injuring himself trying
to do wheelies on his motorcycle and the media began hounding him… which only became worse
once Brazil’s under 23’s missed out on qualification to the olympic games, with Dener
being blamed for their failure… Dener was being seen as the frontman in a
team that included the likes of Cafu and Roberto Carlos, as unfair as his treatment was, it
was also a testament to his greatness… Still, don’t get me wrong, the media did,
to an extent, sort of have a point… as his own aunt once said: “he thought that if
he had a game the next day, getting 3 hours of sleep was more than enough”... But the thing is that, for Dener, it really
seemed that was enough… There was this one time when no one could
find him the day before a match against Santos… Everyone was worried, the manager was already
setting up a new gameplan to make up for his absence and then a couple hours before the
match he showed up like nothing had happened… He went into the match and it was like he
wasn’t even there… by halftime they were losing 2 nil and as one of his teammates said
“I was sure that was it, we were gonna get trashed 8 nil by Santos”... However, in the locker room, the manager went
crazy on Dener, blaming him for everything and eventually telling him he was gonna be
subbed off…. But at that moment Dener looked him in the
eye and told him “I’m not coming off, I’m gonna go into that pitch and I am the
one who says when that match is over”... Once he finished that sentence, the whole
locker room went silent, they could feel something was about to happen… about half an hour
later, Dener had led Portuguesa to come back 3 to 2, but it wasn’t enough… Then he got the ball, put it between the first
defender’s legs, beat the second one on the sprint and slotted it in after dribbling
the keeper… It was a masterpiece, by the time the final
whistle was heard, he turned to his teammates and told them “I said what I said, I am
Dener. Everyone here must understand this, I am Dener”... In other words, he wanted them to know that
he was him... Regardless, not even these kinds of performances
were enough to draw the attention away from his bad boy persona… Over the next year, he arrived at training
in a car covered in bullet holes, then he was caught hiding a blade in his sock as he
was supposedly planning on stabbing one of his teammates… As one newspaper called him, he was “a brilliant
vagabond”... he had become one of the most infamous players in the country and unfortunately
this cost him his place on the national team even though he had the likes of 2 time world
cup winner Pepe, claiming that “he deserves more chances, in terms of raw talent, no player
ever got this close to Pelé”... At this point, it was more clear than ever,
Dener needed to get his act together and the first step towards that was getting away from
his hometown and getting away from his old friends… So he talked to Grémio, who had been dreaming
about signing for years but simply couldn’t afford him, and worked out a deal for a 3
month loan… It all went incredibly well, they even won
the Gaucho Championship, but Dener’s stock rose even further and by the time he got back
to Portuguesa, they too had fallen into the same predicament… his contract was nearing its end and they
just couldn’t afford him… as the president would say “It was getting to a point where
he almost earned more by himself than everyone of his teammates put together… We were getting so desperate that at one point,
half joking, half serious, I proposed signing away the stadium to his name… He would be
the owner of all of this… We realized it was impossible to keep him
here much longer”... And it was at this point that Dener made a
silly little suggestion that changed the route of his life… Dener said he would agree to renew his contract
as long as the club could get him a Mitsubishi Eclipse as a sign on bonus… It might seem like a small request now, but
at the time, it was extremely hard to import cars into Brazil due to some really strict
laws, so getting one was like finding a needle in a haystack… By the time Dener got the car, it was one
of only a handful in the country… Everywhere he took his spaceship, as he liked
to call it, people saw the all white paint job with Dener 10 on the license plate and
knew who it was… little did they know he had just signed his death sentence… However, while all of this happened in São
Paulo, it was something else that was happening in Rio De Janeiro that sealed his destiny… Back in 1989, a man named Eurico Miranda became
the brazilian national team’s director of football, leading them to win the Copa America
after a 40 year drought… However, one year later, he had already left… The problem was simple, he was also the vice
president of Vasco Da Gama and he refused to let go of that position. Simultaneously, Jair Pereira, a manager who
had led Brazil to two under 20 world cups, was sacked from Atletico after getting into
a bit of an upset with the president… and it was right here that Eurico Miranda approached
him, trying to sign him, asking him: “Jair, do you wanna be champions with me?” and Jair replied: “Yeah, I’ll make you
a champion. I only have one demand… Dener”... At this moment, Eurico’s eyes widened…
he was flabbergasted. Signing Dener was gonna be his first suggestion…
and as you might imagine, for Dener who was desperate to right his wrongs and secure a
place in the 1994 world cup, joining them at Vasco was the perfect move… He was getting the exposure provided by joining
one of the biggest teams in Brazil, while managing to get away from his hometown and
clean up his image, while also catering to the wishes of two men who had great power
over the national team… For once, he was making the right move… Or at least that’s what everyone thought… On the first day of training, Dener was so
excited that when Jair asked the players to start the session by running around the pitch,
he darted way with such speed that once he reached the corner flag, he slipped, fell,
hit his head on the ground and passed out to the great amusement of everyone of his
new teammates… Regardless, this over excitement translated
well onto the pitch… How well, you ask… Let’s just say thar his debut against Newell’s
Old Boys is arguably the most iconic match of his entire career… That day, the focus should’ve been on Maradona,
it was his first game back after being out injured for a few months… However, Dener had another plan… 6 minutes in, Dener took the ball and made
it past 1,2,3,4,5 players… only barely missing out on the goal… That early into the match Maradona was already
shaking his head in disbelief… And Dener pretty much didn’t stop until
he was subbed off… He was so incredible that the next day, even
the argentine newspapers had Dener on the cover… But nothing was more shocking than when Maradona
surprised the entire Vasco squad, by barging into their locker room asking for “the kid”... Maradona wanted to shake his hand… I don’t think there is a bigger seal of
approval than that… The moment Diego left, Dener just kept rubbing
it on his friend’s faces: “did Maradona ever ask to meet you? Didn’t think so”... Even 3 years later when his teammate, Ricardo
Rocha ended up joining Newell’s, the people still talked about that young boy who showed
Maradona how it’s done… It was especially ironic that a goalless match
would end up being his most iconic…. I mean Dener was literally famous for saying
that “Sometimes the dribble is more beautiful than the goal”...
Regardless, over the next few months at Vasco, Dener was on some of his greatest form ever,
so much so that, by the end, the fans had begun chanting “It’s cafuné, it’s cafuné,
Dener is a mix of Garrincha and Pelé”... However, what no one realized back then was
that over that period, Dener was experiencing one of the lowest moments of his life… Despite the fact he had three kids and financially
provided for their mother almost as if she was his wife, Dener never actually got married
to her and was completely open about the fact he was dating other women… And only one month after arriving at Vasco,
his girlfriend, at the time, passed away after being run over by a car during the Carnival… Still, no matter what his mental state was
at the time, only 2 months later, his performances had earned him his first move to europe… At the end of the season, Dener would join
Stuttgart for a sum of 3 million dollars… but unfortunately, that move would never take
place… Only 3 days after signing that contract, and
16 days after his 23rd birthday, Dener, who had gone back to São Paulo for the negotiations,
decided, at around midnight, that he had to go back to Rio immediately. Despite the fact he already had a plane ticket
for the next morning, he refused to leave his famous Mitsubishi Eclipse in São Paulo… So… Tired and with a 5 hour trip ahead of him,
no matter how much his family kept insisting that he should stay the night, it didn’t
matter… 3 months earlier Dener had met a man named
Otto Miranda, a convicted arms dealer, alleged drug dealer and personal friend of both Romário
and Edmundo… Once again, Dener picked his friendships poorly
and invited Otto to come with him to São Paulo… That day, no matter what Dener’s family
said, Otto repeatedly insisted that they could take turns sleeping while the other drove
the car and so it was… Before leaving, Dener picked up his phone
and called one of his best friends, Edinho, a goalkeeper at Santos and even more notably
Pelé’s son… The two had met around 7 years earlier in
a youth match… Dener scored past Edinho, the two struck conversation,
ended up going out for pizza and quickly became extremely close… However, that day, when Dener called he seemed
strange, he kept telling Edinho how much he loved him… Edinho insists to this day that Dener had
to know what was about to happen… Regardless, at 5 a.m., already in Rio De Janeiro,
only 20 minutes away from Dener’s house, Otto fell asleep at the wheel, lost control
of the car and it collided into a tree… They were only going around 40 miles per hour,
but unfortunately, while Otto’s only injuries were two broken legs… Dener had leaned his seat back too far, meaning
that on impact, the seatbelt strangled him, causing his larynx to bleed, ultimately leading
him to choke on his own blood… Somehow, the cameras got to the accident before
the paramedics… the images of Dener laying there with newspapers covering his face would
be seen by everyone in Brazil… 13 days later, Ayrton Senna died as well…
and that became easily the most tragic month in the history of Brazilian sports… Even more depressing, it took years in court
before his family received the 3 million dollars owed to them by their life insurance… Vasco had never actually filed the papers,
because well… nobody dies at 23… To make this all even more strange… Otto was assassinated months later…
