This was going to be in regards to the search.
It was going to be a kind of items with an absence at its coronary heart, a type of magical thriller write-around, Frank Sinatra Has A Chilly for the Brazilian soccer heads.
Typically you get the interview. Typically you simply need to shrug and inform the story with out it. A model of the story, anyway.
That’s the way it was shaping up with Kerlon Moura Souza. It was going to be a long-distance profile, the story of one of many recreation’s strangest parlour methods and its creator, instructed by means of the hazy prism of reminiscence. I had dug out the movies of the dribble that made him well-known and watched them numerous instances. Possibly it was higher this fashion, I instructed myself. Nothing ruins a people story like interrogating the logic of its plot factors.
It wasn’t that I hadn’t tried. No, the making an attempt was going to be an enormous a part of it. The plan was to actually ham issues up, to make a fruitless and objectively fairly uninteresting pursuit sound one thing like spycraft.
I used to be going to reference the pleading emails I had despatched him throughout a interval of years; the time spent monitoring his whereabouts from my bed room; the Instagram messages to his private and enterprise accounts; the hopeful enquiry to considered one of his employers. All of which yielded a grand whole of… nada. A giant previous nothing sandwich with a aspect of radio silence.
As time went on, I typically imagined what the title is perhaps. ‘The Hunt for the Seal Dribbler’, maybe. Or, if that indirect reference to his trademark transfer didn’t minimize it with my editor, one thing a little bit extra on-the-nose. ‘Kerlon: An Unrequited Love Story’ would have labored simply high quality.
Earlier this yr, I made a decision the second had come. Sufficient ready, sufficient frustration. I used to be going to do it, going to jot down the piece, going to lastly tick it off my listing and overlook about it.
Then I discovered him.
As soon as upon a time, there was a boy. The boy was a proficient footballer. He was nippy, skilful and powerful. Folks thought he was going to be a star at some point. In lots of circumstances, that’s so far as the fable goes. It’s usually sufficient to suck individuals in.
This specific boy, although, additionally had one thing else. He had a particular transfer, an invention all of his personal. He might make the ball keep on with his brow. He might flick it up and simply… preserve it there, gravity be damned. It went with him wherever he went. He might run, even change course, and nonetheless it stayed there, simply above his eyeline, a little bit spherical pet.
Some individuals liked the boy, liked his trick. It was enjoyable and it was humorous in the best way that uncommon issues could be. If anybody had thought to do it earlier than, they’d given up lengthy earlier than displaying it off. However the boy wasn’t embarrassed and he wasn’t scared. He did the trick even when he knew it will finish in tears, even after it had begun to show strangers into enemies.
The trick made the boy well-known. It additionally made him a goal.
The children are leaving once I arrive. They shuffle off with their dad and mom into automobiles and vehicles, exhausted however completely happy. Day two of their week-long summer time soccer camp is over.
It’s simply after noon in Hemby Bridge, a commuter city simply southeast of Charlotte, North Carolina. The air is sizzling and heavy with moisture; my T-shirt begins to stay to my again quickly after I step out of the taxi. It doesn’t assist that I’m jogging, frantically plotting a path to the rear of the native elementary college, making an attempt to get to the sports activities pitches earlier than Kerlon leaves.
He isn’t anticipating me. I don’t know what to anticipate of him.
As I strategy throughout the grass, a person is packing the final bag of footballs into the boot of his automobile. He wears a bucket hat and a black coaching shirt. He’s tanned and stocky, facial hair cropped right into a neat goatee. It’s him.
I shout out his identify. A smile spreads throughout his face.
He’s gracious and pleasant. He says he has lunch deliberate along with his household, however that he’ll discuss if I come again tomorrow, vivid and early, earlier than coaching. I inform him he has a deal.
Kerlon was well-known earlier than he had even performed first-team soccer. It was an inevitability: the trick — first dusted off at youth stage for Cruzeiro, then for Brazil’s under-17 aspect — was all the time destined to make waves.
For one factor, it was simply so odd, so wilfully off-kilter. There are a thousand methods to dribble previous an opponent, however till Kerlon got here alongside, they beautiful a lot all concerned the toes. To look at him set off on a run, ball bobbling up and down on his forehead, was to be compelled to resolve what instinctively felt like a class error. Little marvel that defenders didn’t appear to know what to do with him within the early days; it’s exhausting to counteract one thing you possibly can barely even perceive.
The factor of shock didn’t final. This was the mid-2000s, most likely barely too early for the trick to be known as a viral sensation, however clips of it quickly began doing the rounds. One, initially posted on YouTube in December 2005, has been watched over 3.7million instances since. The seal dribble, individuals known as the transfer, a reputation that conjured vibrant circus photographs. Kerlon swiftly turned O Foquinha — The Little Seal — and it wasn’t lengthy earlier than his membership have been promoting seal toys, seeking to money in on his identify.
Kerlon turned O Foquinha — The Little Seal (Daniel de Cerqueira/AFP by way of Getty Pictures)
There was extra to Kerlon’s recreation than his trademark transfer. He was high scorer for Brazil on the South American Beneath-17 Championship in Venezuela, outshining future senior internationals Marcelo, Renato Augusto and Anderson. The title of one other well-liked YouTube video in contrast him to Ronaldinho and whereas that was definitely on the beneficiant aspect, Kerlon might be equally effervescent on his day. He might damage opposition groups along with his passing, along with his ending and along with his dead-ball capacity. Nonetheless, all the things all the time got here again to the dribble.
Brazil went crazy for Kerlon’s dribble in a means that perhaps solely Brazil might. This was soccer as improvisational theatre, as streetwise problem-solving and, above all, as unrefined play. The seal dribble was experimental, naive curiosity supercharged by method. It was ludic and it was ludicrous — not the factor itself, essentially, though it did have a sure came-up-with-this-after-six-beers power. No, the ludicrous half was that Kerlon would do it in precise matches.
He did it within the South American Championship in opposition to Colombia and Uruguay. Later, he did it for Cruzeiro in a neighborhood derby, sparking a mass brawl and an ethical panic. However we’ll get to that later.
Kerlon performing his signature ability (AP Photograph/Ana Maria Otero)
Beneath bushes that sway within the morning breeze, Kerlon will get as cozy because the wood bench will permit. We’re a little bit delayed — coaching begins in 20 minutes — so there is no such thing as a nice preamble, no backlift. Slowly however confidently, Kerlon simply launches into the story of the trick that modified his life.
“After I was a really younger child, I’d practice quite a bit with my dad,” he says. “Simply us two. Sooner or later he kicked the ball up excessive for me. It bounced on the ground and got here as much as my head. I did 4 or 5 little headers in a row, conserving the ball up. My dad stopped. He requested, ‘For those who ran with the ball in your head like that, would it not be a free kick?’. I mentioned that I didn’t know however that we should always discover out. My dad seemed up the principles and noticed that it was authorized. There was no difficulty with it.”
Kerlon’s father, Silvino, requested him to maintain practising the transfer. At first, he would do it on the spot. Later, he tried it whereas strolling in a straight line. “Then I’d stick with it whereas operating and at last I did it with cones, dribbling round them like they have been opposition gamers,” explains Kerlon. “We labored on it each day with the intention to good it. It was an actual course of.”
When Kerlon had nailed the method, Silvino started to consider how his son would possibly use it in video games. He purchased a ebook on peripheral imaginative and prescient and integrated that into the coaching regime, the concept being that Kerlon would be capable of see opponents approaching even when he had the ball up excessive.
“It was the product of nice dedication on his half,” says Kerlon. “It was straightforward for me to maintain the ball up, however he labored out how it will work on the pitch. The technique was all his.”
Kerlon was 13 when he first did the trick round different individuals. He had simply joined Cruzeiro and was enjoying in midfield in an academy match.
“At one level, the opposition goalkeeper took a aim kick and it was identical to it was in coaching with my dad,” he says. “My dad would hit the ball lengthy and I’d management it on my chest, lifting it into the air. The identical occurred within the recreation and off I went. The opposite youngsters simply stopped. I saved going and saved going, from the center of the sector to the sting of the field. After I acquired to the penalty spot, I introduced the ball down and scored. It was all so computerized.”
It was additionally proof of idea. Now that Kerlon and Silvino knew that the dribble might work, they doubled down on it. Kerlon saved practising the trick and sometimes introduced it out in matches — though by no means, he insists, only for the sake of it. He strongly rejects the notion that the seal dribble was some type of gimmick.
“I believe it was an answer I had out there to me, a means of getting out of a difficult scenario,” he says. “I by no means walked out onto the sector planning on doing it. It was simply one thing that will occur naturally.”
It was predictable that sure individuals would come to view the transfer as a provocation. Dribbling is a blood sport at the very best of instances; this felt to some like an try to humiliate. At youth stage, Kerlon would get tripped and kicked. By the point he was enjoying with adults, the worst challenges had began to look rather a lot like sucker punches.
Living proof: the Belo Horizonte derby in September 2007. Cruzeiro have been beating Atletico Mineiro 4-3 with 10 minutes to play when Kerlon — a second-half substitute — flicked the ball onto his head following a brief nook.
One, two, three touches later, Atletico full-back Coelho got here alongside and shoulder-charged him into one other dimension, making Kerlon’s head snap again with the affect. It was an terrible, cynical problem. A couple of seconds later, as gamers from either side piled in, the scene seemed like one thing from a martial arts film.
The incident provoked a great deal of hand-wringing on either side. Many thought Kerlon — the sufferer, by any smart measure — was by some means in charge for the tough therapy.
“Sooner or later, he might miss numerous soccer,” mentioned Atletico’s coach, Emerson Leao. “Possibly at some point he does that, will get kicked within the face and by no means performs once more.”
Luiz Alberto, the captain of rival membership Fluminense, was much more specific: “It’s disrespectful to his opponents. They’re professionals, too. He wouldn’t get previous me. I’d use capoeira (an Afro-Brazilian martial artwork) strikes if I needed to. I’d take the ball, his head and all the things else.”
Kerlon, no less than, was in a position to defend himself with eloquence past his years. “Followers go to the stadium to see a spectacle,” he mentioned. “We have to resolve what the principle thought of Brazilian soccer is — artwork or violence.”
(AP Photograph/Fernando Llano)
His advocates included, bizarrely, Atletico midfielder Maicosuel, in addition to quite a few readers of Placar journal. “It brings individuals to the stadium in the identical means Garrincha’s feints as soon as did,” learn one message of help, printed on the letters web page. “No-holds-barred fighters like that troglodyte Coelho should be punished.”
One of the best a part of 20 years later, Kerlon sees the humorous aspect of all of it. He says he realised early on that the seal dribble could be divisive.
“There was numerous help for me within the youth sides,” he says, “however at senior stage, even my very own team-mates thought I shouldn’t do it. They might say I used to be asking for bother. I had a couple of points with the older ones. They actually didn’t prefer it.”
What about his opponents? Did their violence get to him? Kerlon laughs. “No,” he says. “I appreciated it. Whenever you like to play with freedom, once you like to dribble and beat your man, it feels good to get kicked. So long as you don’t get injured, it’s good. It’s not a foul factor. It drives you on.
“You see that the opposite man is pissed off with you, however you do it anyway as a result of it’s a part of your recreation. I believe that’s cool. Have a look at Neymar. He feels good when he beats his man and will get fouled, when he is usually a bit dramatic. That’s a part of the Brazilian fashion.”
When it got here to his coaches, some have been extra open to the trick than others. “A couple of of them thought it was pointless; others thought it put our crew in danger,” he says. “I used to be all the time clear that I’d by no means do the transfer in my very own penalty space. I mentioned I’d solely do it close to the opposition field, the place we would win a harmful free kick or a penalty. The thought was to provide you with one thing for the crew, not for me.”
Even when he did get the inexperienced gentle, different points emerged. Kerlon says one supervisor requested him to do the seal dribble straight from kick-off. “That is once I was enjoying for Sliema Wanderers in Malta,” he says. “The coach wished Rafael Ledesma, the opposite Brazilian on the crew, to flick the ball up for me as quickly because the referee began the match. He defined this in a crew discuss earlier than a match. All the opposite gamers simply checked out me, as if to say, ‘Actually?’.
“I mentioned, ‘How am I going to do this? I’ll have 11 opposition gamers in entrance of me. What’s the purpose? What likelihood do I’ve?’. He mentioned that I might win us a free kick. Ultimately, I instructed Ledesma to flick the ball up and I’d give it a go. But it surely was unimaginable. I took a few touches after which the opposite crew simply smashed into me. I injured my leg and needed to go off. I didn’t even make it out of the centre circle.”
It’s right here that the opposite strand of Kerlon’s story — the diminishing returns, the gradual tumble down the slopes of the soccer pyramid — comes into focus.
(AP Photograph/Fernando Llano)
The tide of early fanfare carried Kerlon to Italy — he moved to Inter Milan by way of Chievo and was represented by the late tremendous agent Mino Raiola — however not a lot additional. He by no means performed a aggressive match for Inter or for Ajax throughout a mortgage stint there. His subsequent full-time employers have been Fujieda MYFC in Japan. There was a fleeting spell within the U.S. with Miami Dade FC. After a handful of video games in Malta and some extra in Slovakia, he retired in 2017, aged 29.
It will be straightforward to look at that confounding CV and assume that Kerlon was by no means truly that good — that the seal dribble had written cheques that the remainder of his recreation couldn’t money. There could also be a level of fact to that, however the actuality is that his physique by no means allowed him to completely check the boundaries of his capacity.
There have been six ACL accidents — two of them whereas he was nonetheless in his teenagers — and a pair of significant ankle issues. Every one slowed him down. It was unimaginable to construct up any semblance of momentum.
“I progressively misplaced my love for soccer,” he says. “After each surgical procedure, I took six or seven months to completely get better. After I got here again, it was exhausting to maintain up, bodily. Then I’d get injured once more. I checked out different gamers and they might run up and down continually. I attempted to maintain up however some muscle would go and I’d be out for 3 weeks.”
He endured it for so long as he might, however there was a restrict. “All the things damage by the top,” he says. “It was so unhealthy. It wasn’t that I didn’t love soccer. It was that I didn’t need to be in ache anymore. That’s why I finished.”
There is no such thing as a bitterness in Kerlon’s voice. It helps that he’s content material with life within the U.S., his residence for the previous couple of years. He first moved to Connecticut, in search of job alternatives he felt have been missing in Brazil, then got here right down to North Carolina in the course of the Covid pandemic. His household is completely happy and work is sweet: he’s the technical director of the native soccer college and likewise places on non-public classes. “I like being concerned within the recreation,” he says. “It’s what I do know greatest.”
The American youngsters have a obscure sense of his story, he says, however don’t get too excited by it. The relative anonymity fits him high quality. He’s completely happy along with his legacy and has no large need to burnish it. He has performed a few brief interviews with Brazilian web sites since retiring, however he ignores most requests. He acquired sufficient consideration in these early years to final a lifetime.
“At this time, I desire a quiet life,” he says. “Folks inform me I’ve to get my identify on the market. No. The story is already there and other people do bear in mind. Each time a participant does a little bit header to himself in a recreation, commentators in Brazil begin speaking about me. ‘The Little Seal! Keep in mind Kerlon?’. Folks do bear in mind.”
I don’t point out all of the messages and emails. It’s all the time a little bit uncomfortable when your interviewee particulars his or her aversion to interviews. Maybe sensing this, Kerlon explains why he agreed to speak.
“Whenever you got here right here to seek out me, I felt proud,” he says. “Have a look at us right here now: you’re from England and also you discovered me, hidden away right here. Do you perceive? Look how far my dribble travelled.
“For those who had simply known as me, I’d have mentioned I wasn’t . However you discovered me. Thanks for coming. This was good.”
The primary girls and boys are actually making their means onto the coaching pitch. A pair look over, quizzically. I thank Kerlon for his time; he poses for a few photographs.
There’s, nevertheless, yet one more query. I don’t know the way he’ll react to it, however I really feel obliged to ask it anyway.
Can he nonetheless do the seal dribble now?
He smiles. “Straightforward,” he says, grabbing a ball. He throws it to me and asks me to kick it to him at chest peak.
A second or two later, he’s operating throughout the turf, his previous accomplice in crime dancing on his brow, the many years and the accidents and all of it fading away till solely the light tap-tap-tap of leather-based on pores and skin stays.
(Prime photographs: Getty Pictures; design: Eamonn Dalton)