Sport full back Cicinho has revealed that, after a troubled spell in Europe that saw him consider quitting the sport altogether, he has fallen back in love with football since joining the Recife side thanks to his partner Marri.
In an interview with Esporte Fantastico several weeks ago, Cicinho admitted that he had had serious drinking problems while at Roma and that he would have done other drugs if there had been less stringent anti-doping tests.
However, the 32-year-old believes that he has put this troubled time behind him, and in an interview with Globo he reflected on the rocky road that had led him to nearly giving everything up.
"I let myself be carried away by fame, by success. I let the money go to my head and I felt capable of anything", Cicinho explains.
"I was earning R$800 [around £250] at Botafogo-SP and I went to Atletico-MG to earn R$7,800 [around £2,400]. I thought I was rich, I took R$1,000 and sent it to my parents. I wasted the rest of the money on parties".
From Atletico Mineiro, Cicinho went to Sao Paulo, where in 2005 he won the Campeonato Paulista, the Copa Libertadores and the Club World Cup. A call up to the Brazil squad arrived for the Confederations Cup in the same year, but Cicinho says that he should have paid more respect to his place in the team.
"If I had been more professional, I would have been fighting to go with the Selecao. But I didn't want to fight for it, I wanted to get my place easily".
A transfer to Real Madrid came next, and Cicinho developed - as Globo put it - a 'galactico ego', but a serious ligament injury curtailed his time at the club.
"When the plane arrived in Madrid, my head was attached to my success - it was rising like a rocket. I wanted to own everything. For example, I arrived in one pub and sent a man to open it up for me as I said I would drink everything there".
When Cicinho went back to his home town of Pradopolis, he admits that he often used his parents' house to host his parties, and that his drinking lifestyle often came at the expense of his own family.
"I used my parents' house as a place to hold my parties. I remember my mother was celebrating a birthday and I called a lot of my friends. There were about 200 people at the party, and my mother didn't know half of those people.
"It got to the point where, in the best hotel in my city, while the guy was checking me in at three in the morning, I took a piss in the lobby.
"I tried to buy the love of my boy [Heitor, now five years old] with gifts. He called me to come and play ball and I said that I was playing cards, or drinking a beer. I really failed to impress my parents or my child".
Cicinho's time at Roma was unsuccessful, while a loan with Sao Paulo - the club that had put the full back on the world stage, as he has previously described them - was disastrous.
"I made an error with Sao Paulo in my second time there. I wanted nothing to do with anything".
However, there was light at the end of the tunnel for Cicinho. During his time in Rome, he came across Marri. After a brief and failed relationship early on, the two reunited after Cicinho returned to Roma from Villarreal, and Marri persuaded him to give up drinking. At first, it was not so successful.
"When we met again, he was in one of his worst times," Marri explains. "He was drinking all day, and people would come up to me and tell me what he was doing. I said, 'My God, I'm not a kid to be betrayed'".
Fortunately for the pair, Cicinho managed to exchange his love for drinking with his old love for football. After Cicinho and Marri married in June, the 32-year-old is now hoping that his relationship with Sport will be equally prosperous.
"The love that she feels for me, I feel for her", Cicinho says. "She made me regain the love that I have for my own life. So I realised that I couldn't waste what God has given me - the gift of playing football.
"I'm very happy at Sport, a club that has welcomed me into a wonderful city. I want to make history here as the club idol Magrao did".
