. Starting this Sunday, learn a little about its history in Juazeiro do Norte-CE
Nine Sons of Francisca. This is the name the film about the life of Ronaldo Angelim could well have. After Zezé de Camargo and Luciano (Two Sons of Francisco) and the President of the Republic (Lula, the Son of Brazil), the defender of Flamengo would be a character with enough stories to move millions of Brazilians.
Angelim's family is almost complete - his mother, Francisca, on the left, his father, Antônio, on the right, and his grandmother, Antônia, seated. Apart from the first man on the left, the others in the photo are brothers.
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From birth
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\ Ronaldo Angelim's father, Antônio, worked
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Angelim lived with his grandmother, Antônia, now 93, for a time in neighboring Juazeiro do Norte, known as the hometown of Padre Cícero. From the age of three to seven, the defender studied at Irmã Neli school. This Saturday, he was able to relive a bit of this past during a surprise visit.
One of the houses where Angelim lived during his childhood in Porteiras, Ceará\
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"I used to go to school in blue pants, a white shirt, and sneakers. But it was very different; there was a huge park and no trees. So much so that we would play ball in that area. There was always a tournament where the winning team would get to choose the best toys. All my friends always chose the cars. I always chose the ball. My grandmother would go crazy because I would kick the ball around inside the house, dirtying the walls... But that was 30 years ago. Not even Barra da Tijuca existed back then," Angelim recalls.
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During his visit, he was greeted by Maria Guiomar, who has worked at the school since 1972 and is currently its coordinator. She informed the defender that Socorro, Angelim's teacher, had passed away four years ago. She also shared another piece of news, which has become commonplace in almost everything related to the player's childhood.
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"Unfortunately, we don't have any records of him here. It's just that every ten years we incinerate all these documents. It's very difficult to archive everything, due to lack of space and to prevent traces," Guiomar explained.
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\ Truly, the Angelim family's past is only etched in memory. The childhood of the defender and his brothers was so poor that there are no photos of them when they were young. Not even one of the houses where he lived after the age of seven is still standing.
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"Childhood is priceless. I always get emotional when I return to Porteiras. The house I lived in no longer exists. It looked like an Indian hut, with snakes and rats in the tiles, the floor was dirt, the walls clay... But life on the farm was like that. I always had to wake up at 3 a.m. to fetch water from far away," says Ronaldo, one of the sons who helped most with the household's livelihood.
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\ From an early age he was one of those who accompanied his mother in manual labor on the farm,\ while Antônio worked as a cowboy or in various other jobs
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"I suffered a lot, but I was happy and felt rich. In my house, my children never went hungry, even though there were nine mouths to feed. My husband brought the meat, and I helped with a little money I earned working the hoe. Every night I would go and count to see if everyone was there. There were six children sleeping in one room and three in another. I always told them: never want what you can't have," says Dona Antônia.
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\ Besides helping out on the farm and fetching water from the bottom of the well in the early hours of the morning, Ronaldo\ Angelim also used to deliver milk to local farms on the back of a\ donkey. Even so, he managed the miracle of multiplying time.\ After all, after work, he still went to school (he studied until the old 5th grade) and played.
Angelim and Dona Guiomar in the classroom where he studied as a child, in Juazeiro do Norte
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- Besides football, I also liked hunting birds. But it's better not to talk about it too much, because nowadays it's forbidden - jokes the defender.
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\ Without any kind of luxury, the radio was one of the most valuable objects in the house.\ On it, he listened to the forrós of Luiz Gonzaga, the typical music of the São João square dances and, especially, the hits of Amado Batista and Reginaldo Rossi.\ However, his memory does not hold any song that marked his childhood.
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Without photographs or school reports, the defender's life only began to be written after he began his career at Icasa, the main team in Juazeiro do Norte. Only a film could show Brazil what the Angelim family went through before they became famous.
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"My life would really make a movie. But if they actually made that movie and accurately told how everything really happened, it would be 150 times worse than what you're hearing," says Ronaldo Angelim, one of Francisca's nine children.