DANIEL ALARCÓN: This is Radio Ambulante from NPR, I'm Daniel Alarcón and I'm here with our producer Lisette Arévalo. Hello Lisette.
LISETTE: Hi Daniel.
Daniel: Hey, Lisette, how much do you know and how much do you like soccer?
LISETTE: Well, I have to be very, very honest and I don't like soccer at all (laughs) and therefore I don't know anything about soccer. I know the basics that it's like a yellow card and a red card if you do something very, very bad. (laughs).
ALARCÓN: (Laughs).
LISETTE: But that's where all my super knowledge about this sport that is so important to our region ends.
Daniel: Yeah, okay, so I know that about you because we worked together for many years, so I was very surprised that on the board, which is like the internal record of the stories that come in Radio Ambulante, I saw your name at the side of a football story. So I guess there must be a very particular reason why you're bringing me a soccer story when you don't like that sport at all.
LISETTE: Yes, Daniel, and I know that you really like soccer and you're a big fan and you talk about it with the rest of the team. But I'm sure you've never heard a story like the one I'm going to tell you because it's about a soccer player who—from what I understand and what I know about soccer—has one of the most impressive careers in Brazil.
Daniel: Let's see, let's see, let's see. And that's it. Ok, tell me where her… her story begins.
LISETTE: Let's see. To begin with, he was in Flamengo, which is a team from Rio de Janeiro and is one of the oldest and biggest in Brazil.
Daniel: According to what they told you...
LISETTE: As you have told me and I have investigated, I have also done my journalistic work (laughs).
Daniel: Ready. Yes, I know Flamengo. Champion of the Copa Libertadores several times and recently reached the Club World Cup.
LISETTE: Very, very prestigious. Any soccer player in Brazil would like to go through this team. Uh... and well, he also went through another one who is from Vasco da Gama. And it was not there in any year, but it was there in 1989, when they were champions of the season.
ALARCÓN: Perfect. I mean, of course, this man already collected titles…
LISETTE: Exactly, he went through the most important teams in Rio and Brazil. But it didn't just stop there, as you probably know and I recently found out...
ALARCÓN: (Laughs).
LISETTE: Brazil exports many soccer players abroad, especially to Europe. And this player I want to tell you about is no exception. He was part of teams like Independiente from Argentina, Puebla from Mexico and even played for France.
Daniel: Now, I mean, he fulfilled the dream of any young Latin American soccer player to play in Europe.
LISETTE: Exactly.
ALARCÓN: Yeah. So now... Let's see, I've probably heard of this player, what's his name?
LISETTE: Well, his name is Carlos Henrique Raposo, but everyone knows him as Carlos Kaiser.
Daniel: Everyone, that is, nobody, because (laughs) that name doesn't sound familiar to me at all.
LISETTE: Uh... Well, it's just that Daniel, actually Carlos or well, Kaiser, in all the time he was on these teams, in the twenty years of his career, he never really touched a soccer ball.
Daniel: 20 years of career and he didn't play a... Ok. But how come he played on all these teams without touching a ball?
LISETTE: Well, the thing is that Kaiser always had the ability to convince everyone that he was someone he wasn't and beyond being a story about soccer, this story is about a man with a lot of but a lot of charisma, a gift for words and all the hallmarks of a great soccer player.
Daniel: Ok, well Lisette, I'm all ears and I'll pass you the microphone.
LISETTE: Okay, here we go. But first, a little pause.
CARMAX: This message comes from NPR sponsor CarMax. Imagine buying a car your way. Online, from the comfort of your home. In person on the lot. Or a combination of both. CarMax lets you choose how you shop. They even deliver your car to your doorstep in select markets. And however you shop, CarMax has you covered with a 30-day or 1,500-mile money-back guarantee. Learn more and start shopping at carmax.com. CarMax, reinventing car buying.
SQUARESPACE: This message comes from NPR's sponsor, Squarespace. With a powerful e-commerce platform designed to grow your business. Sell unlimited products and services online with no transaction fees, and effortlessly manage your inventory, orders, and customers. You are proud of what you sell, build a website that reflects that. Visit squarespace.com/NPR for a free trial, and when you're ready to launch your page use the code “NPR” to save 10 percent on your first website or domain purchase.
LISETTE: We're back, I'm Lisette Arévalo.
The story of Carlos Kaiser is not one of those that can be fully verified. But that doesn't make it any less real. So let's start by saying something key: Kaiser has always known how to get away with it. And that's why he defines himself as a thug.
KAISER: A malandragem é um jeito de você defend yourself from, from the heartaches, from the difficulties that the world presents to you.
LISETTE: Malandragem, that is to say the act of being a “malandro”, which Kaiser describes as a necessary action to defend oneself from the difficulties of the world. Although in Spanish malandro means delinquent, in Brazil it is different. It is a term widely used to refer to the mischievous boys from big cities like Rio de Janeiro, where Kaiser grew up in the 70s. Boys who, like him, with ingenuity, subtlety and deceit, know how to overcome any difficulty and likes to have the upper hand in every situation.
Well, actually, this concept shouldn't seem very foreign to you: it's the idea that the rogue, the cunning, lives off the stupid, the slow. Something so common, unfortunately, in our region.
Kaiser, for example, looked for a way to make money or get by if he didn't have it: sometimes he cut flowers from the gardens of a cemetery to sell them at the entrance or went to the movies without paying the ticket.
KAISER: We say cats have seven lives. I only have one, do you understand? So I have to have a quick reason to, to get rid of myself…
LISETTE: He puts it in terms of survival. Because unlike cats, which are said to have 7 lives, he only has one. So for him, he needs to have quick reasoning to overcome life's mishaps. If not, according to him, he would be dead.
Like once, when he was 12, and what for him was the worst thing almost happened to him: he was going to run out of Christmas. His mother told him that if he failed in school, she would not give him gifts and he would not be able to participate in dinner. Carlos already knew that he had done poorly in the exams. So the day he had to go pick up his notes, he had an idea. He decided to stop at a public phone that was very close to his school.
KAISER: Pick up the policeman 190 and male who has a bomb at school.
LISETTE: He called the police and said there was a bomb at the school. When he arrived and saw that everyone was being evacuated from the place, he feigned surprise. And when he told his mom what happened and that he couldn't give her the grades, she had no choice but to accept it.
KAISER: When she knows that he has already been reproved, the parties have already passed.
LISETTE: Carlos had already eaten his Christmas dinner and received his presents by the time the notes arrived at his house.
At only 10, 12 years old, Carlos says that being a thug... a rogue... had to do with the neighborhood in which he grew up.
KAISER: I am a Morava, a poor neighborhood in the South Zone of Rio de Janeiro called Botafogo. demotas houses ne? And surrounded by hills, by favela né?
LISETTE: It was a residential area, with few shops, he says. Surrounded by hills and favelas. The Botafogo that he describes is a poor place, the typical hostile neighborhood where many Brazilian soccer stars have come from. Although, to be precise, this neighborhood is not as poor as Kaiser says. Historically it has been one of the wealthiest in the city, where the nobles settled in colonial times. And although over time it became more and more populated, with factory workers, artisans, soldiers and merchants, the richest continued to live in the neighborhood. Even there is one of the most expensive schools and it is one of the most touristic places in the city.
Anyway, according to Carlos, he was far from living the life of a nobleman. He remembers seeing a lot of violence, and the presence of drug cartels that were looking for his friends to offer them work. And he says that many of them accepted because they needed to earn a few reais to support their families. It's not hard to believe because there are studies that indicate that in the 1970s, when Kaiser grew up, 60 percent of the country's population was poor. So for many there was no other alternative.
But Kaiser did have it: soccer.
KAISER: I'm sorry to say that this game isn't arrogant, it's a very true face. I never played soccer. I was always a football crack.
LISETTE: I'm going to translate it literally because it seems important to me. Says Kaiser: “I think saying that I was playing is not being pushy. I'm a very real guy. I have never played soccer. I have always been a football star”.
A crack... You know, one of those extraordinary players who stands out for their movements, technique, and control of the ball. At that time, she spent playing with her friends on the courts of Aterro do Flamengo, a park with several gardens between the center and the south of Rio de Janeiro. And according to him, he was seen in his neighborhood as the boy with the best chance of becoming a professional.
KAISER: I was compared to Beckenbauer.
LISETTE: With Beckenbauer. Franz Beckenbauer. The legendary German defender, twice Ballon d'Or, world champion in 1974, three times European champion with his club, Bayern Munich. Etc. Etc. One of those players who is known by his nickname. It is that he played with a very elegant style, like an emperor or in German, a "kaiser".
So let's imagine it like this: it was the early 70s, Carlos, a crack kid, idol of his neighborhood, being compared to the best defender in the history of soccer. But since people couldn't manage to pronounce "Beckenbauer"...
KAISER: And they discovered that his last name was Kaiser, and they threw away my last name of Kaiser.
LISETTE: When they found out that the German player's nickname was Kaiser, they decided to call Carlos that. Simpler. Just as forceful.
Timing is important too. It was the golden age of Brazilian soccer. Pelé was the best in the world, without question, but he was not the only national idol: Carlos Alberto Torres. Toast. Rivelino. Great players, admired worldwide. And Jairzinho, Kaiser's idol, had scored goals in every game of the 1970 World Cup.
In that World Cup, the Brazilian team dazzled everyone with a unique style of play. Kaiser was 7 years old, watched it all on TV and, like so many kids of his generation, he dreamed of becoming one of those superstar players.
That's why he and his friends spent their afternoons playing what in my country, Ecuador, is called a pachanguita, in Chile a pichanga, and in Brazil bald... In other words, informal games in the streets or in empty lots . If anyone had managed to raise money to buy a ball, they used that one. But if not, they managed the same, using balls made of paper or old socks.
He was out with his friends on a Sunday in December 1973... Kaiser was 10 years old, and was playing a game on Real Grandeza street, when two leaders of a local club appeared... And not just any club... Botafogo, one of the most important in the country, the one that gave the national team its star players in the 1958 and 1962 World Cups. Kaiser played as a midfielder and the Botafogo leaders were very surprised with his technique.
KAISER: The leaders of Botafogo turned on me. Coincidentally, we asked for my country who was EU…
LISETTE: He says that coincidentally the Botafogo leaders asked Kaiser's father who the boy with the long, disheveled hair was. When he replied that she was his son, the leaders asked him to take him to his Club at 7 in the morning the next day. They wanted to give him a training test. His dad agreed, and even though Kaiser didn't even have proper play shoes, they introduced themselves. When he arrived, they asked him to show his performance on the court.
KAISER: With 15 minutes of treino mandaram eu sair and eu fui falar com mi pai…
LISETTE: After only 15 minutes they asked him to leave the court. Kaiser didn't understand what was happening, so he went over to talk to his dad. He felt that they had called him to embarrass him. At that moment, the leaders approached and asked Kaiser to move away because they wanted to speak only with his father. But he was not one to sit and wait to see his fate, and he stayed close enough to hear what they were saying.
KAISER: Sir, you can continue today, sir, trace the documentation of your son because he is going to be registered as a Botafogo player.
LISETTE: They wanted his father to bring his documents because he would be registered as a Botafogo player.
KAISER: There were two happiest days in my life.
LISETTE: I don't know if you understand, that sound at the end of the sentence... It's just that just remembering that day talking to me broke her down. She says it was one of the happiest days of his life. It was not be for lowerly. He and his dad were Botafogo fans, so wearing the black and white striped shirt was an honor, a dream.
KAISER: It was like that everything started.
LISETTE: And he's not just referring to his career at Botafogo. But at the beginning of what would be the myth of Carlos Kaiser. And like all myths, it is difficult to know where the lie begins and the truth ends. In fact, even for him it is almost impossible to clearly remember the exact dates or data about his history. When we talked, he clarified it for me more than once.
But one thing he doesn't forget is the name of all the teams he played for. Sums it up no problem.
KAISER: Vasco, Flamengo, Fluminense, Bangu, América, Independiente from Argentina, El Paso, not Texas, Louletano in Portugal, Puebla not Mexico. Ajaccio on the island of Córsega in France, understand?
LISETTE: But let's start with Botafogo, the first he played for at the age of 10, in the youth category. According to him, since he started wearing the team's jersey, everything in his life changed.
KAISER: Instead of stubbornness, friends, I had 100 friends. I passed not to pay in the supermarket, I passed not to pay to enter the cinema.
LISETTE: He went from having 10 friends to having 100, now they let him go to the movies for free, without having to hide... He would leave the supermarket without paying, only he didn't steal the food, but rather they gave it to him. She was a superstar and her setting was the Botafogo neighborhood. It didn't take long for his mother to realize that her son was a financial opportunity for their family. But especially for her, because Kaiser says that she was an alcoholic and very aggressive. So, according to him, as soon as she had the opportunity, her mother signed the representation of her son's football career.
KAISER: Vendeu meu passe por um a uma pessoa muito ignorante, desconecedora das leis…
LISETTE: But since she was ignorant, says Kaiser, and didn't know about the law, she signed a document that tied her to that businessman for years. If he wanted to break the contract, he would have to pay millions of dollars. And although Kaiser didn't know it at the time, according to him, his mother and the businessman took most of the money they paid him to play for Botafogo. The rest was used to support the family. But of course, it is not that Kaiser was very aware of it at such a young age.
I mentioned a few moments ago that telling the Kaiser story isn't always that simple. In one of our interviews, he took a moment back to his early adolescence, which was, for him, perhaps the first big lie of his life, the one that would be foundational in the Kaiser myth.
When he was about 13 years old, he confirmed a suspicion he had had since he was a child: his parents were not his biological parents.
A cousin told him that his biological mother was a housekeeper at the house of a very important politician in Porto Alegre, the largest city in the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul. The politician got her pregnant and when she told him, he gave her money to disappear and raise her baby. Carlos was born in July 1963 in a neighborhood called Moinhos de Vento.
It is not clear why, but his cousin told him that when Carlos was 7 days old, his mother went to a hotel in Porto Alegre. There he met a lady who was visiting her family in the city and they became friends with her. She asked the lady to take care of her son for a few days while she arranged her life. But when he came back for it, the lady told him that the baby had died. It was a lie, of course, because she wanted to stay with him.
KAISER: Unfortunately, I was robbed from my true mother and was brought to Rio de Janeiro by my beloved mother.
LISETTE: So, Kaiser says, it was that he was stolen from his biological mother and his adoptive mother took him more than 1,500 kilometers away, to Rio de Janeiro. His life—as he knew it—had begun with a deception.
Well, at least that's one of their versions of what happened. In a book written by journalist Rob Smyth, Kaiser told him that his biological mother abandoned him with that lady. That she had told him she would come back for him but she never did. And since the lady who was taking care of him was desperate to have a child, she took it as a sign. Instead of taking it to the police, she took it to Rio to raise as her own.
And that's something you have to know: with Kaiser there are always two or more versions of the same story. Like the origin of his nickname, for example. Because according to a friend of his in an interview for a 2018 documentary called Kaiser: The Greatest Footballer Never to Play Football, his nickname was much more Brazilian than German.
(SOUNDBITE FILE)
ADVERTISING: To Kaiser a big beer, to Kaiser a big beer. Kaiser, a big beer. A beer two happy moments.
LISETTE: Kaiser, a popular beer that began to be sold in Brazil in the 80s. His friend says that since Carlos was chubby and had the shape of a bottle, they nicknamed him that.
But whether it's Kaiser the Emperor or Kaiser the Beer, with him it's impossible to tell which of those two tales is true.
Shortly after learning he was adopted, Kaiser says he was orphaned. His mother was an alcoholic and died of cirrhosis, and his father had a heart attack. For a time he lived at the Botafogo headquarters. When she wasn't there, she lived with two aunts who worked as maids. They lived with just enough, so he started working to help them.
His life became more and more like a movie script about a poor boy who, despite everything, manages to become a great soccer player.
At the age of 15, he says he was kicked out of Botafogo because he offended the club's then president, Charles Borer. But the next day, he joined the youth team of a rival club, Flamengo. And here are also two versions of how it ended up there. One involves the businessman with whom his mother had signed the contract: it is assumed that he was the one who took him.
The other version he gave to journalist Rob Smyth is that Kaiser went to the same school as the children of Dida, the Flamengo youth coach. And that it was through that contact that he ended up playing there. Whatever the reality, Kaiser wasn't on that team very long.
One Monday, while he was training on the Flamengo stadium, some officials from Puebla de México arrived at the club. They were there to see Beijoca, one of the great idols of Brazilian soccer. They wanted to recruit him. But when the training was over, someone else had caught his eye.
KAISER: But they said that they didn't want Beijoca that they wanted that guy who had played…
LISETTE: He says that he had trained very well and that he didn't even know that the Mexican leaders were watching him. In any case, he dazzled them: they chose him over Beijoca and signed his first professional contract. Kaiser was only 16 years old.
We tried to contact Puebla to verify this, but no response. But according to Kaiser, in Mexico there were great expectations. Especially because of his resemblance to Muricy, a former Sao Paulo player who was very famous in Puebla. They both had long, dark hair and white skin.
KAISER: When I came to Mexico, I realized that it was the new Muricy, do you understand? I didn't want anything for myself and I never wanted anything.
LISETTE: They said he would be the new Muricy. But he didn't want any of it, she says. And it is that by then, he had become disenchanted with soccer because it was there that he found out that his mother and the businessman had supposedly kept 80% of what he had earned at Botafogo.
And this would be key to Kaiser's transformation from a player with a lot of promise to a promise who would never play. If he had been deceived since his entry into professional football, now he would dedicate himself to deceiving them all.
KAISER: And I did everything not to play because I made it clear to the leaders.
LISETTE: I did everything not to play.
KAISER: I did everything, I did everything to hide from myself, not play, pretend bruises, provoke juízes…
LISETTE: He hid from the game, feigned bruises, provoked the judges and referees... The first thing he told his coach when he arrived in Puebla was that his leg hurt and that he had to rest for the first few days. According to Kaiser, the coach didn't even question it.
As the days passed, the technical director assumed that Kaiser was better and asked him to train. Quickly Kaiser thought of a way out. He entered the field and after running a few meters, he threw himself to the ground and feigned an injury. The medical team pulled him out while Kaiser gritted his teeth feigning intense pain. The doctors did rehabilitation, they gave him medicine, anti-inflammatories, everything. But nothing seemed to work: Kaiser wouldn't heal and never played again.
After 8 months of not seeing any change in his health, the leaders considered that it was better for him to return to Rio to recover. He did not resist and returned to his aunts. Thus, Kaiser left no trace of any master play or goal. What he did leave behind on his way through Mexico were several affairs with women and a son he had with one of them. But Kaiser did not take care of him. In Rob Smyth's book he says that at 17 he wasn't ready to be anyone's father.
Back in Rio de Janeiro, Kaiser began to move to continue in the world of soccer. According to his account, Puebla did not cancel his contract but instead chose to lend him to different teams in Brazil, such as América do Rio. Although it is also said that he was never officially hired by this team, but rather attended training because he accompanied a friend of his who was a player for that club.
This is how Kaiser spent his afternoons, at the age of 17 or 18, sitting on the bench, telling the players stories about his time in Puebla. But above all, he spent his time talking to the women who went to see the players train.
This is a recurring theme with Kaiser. One starts talking about soccer and he ends up talking about women, without being asked. For example, he wanted to make it clear to me —more than once— that he has never had vices such as drugs or alcohol. But yes one.
KAISER: My habit was always a woman, I used to hang out with three women a day since I was 15 years old.
LISETTE: From the age of 15, I was dating about three women a day. She also told me—again without my asking—that she had her first sexual relationship at 14, although I later found out that she told journalist Rob Smyth that she was about to turn 12. Anyway, she brought up the subject several times. times.
And so it always was. Conquering women here and there... And from those relationships he had another son in Rio with a model, when she was 22. But Kaiser was not a present or exemplary father with him either.
I'm telling you this because a lot of what Kaiser would do with his life has to do, in part, with women. His moves to stay in the world of soccer were never about the sport, but about what he could achieve by being part of it. Or well, pretending to be part of it.
Although of course, it would have been impossible for him to play the role of a soccer star without a supporting cast. So with his friends from América do Rio he went to the footvolley matches —a mix of volleyball and soccer— on Copacabana beach. It was there where the best soccer players went to demonstrate their skills and spend time with their friends.
It was there that Kaiser, at the age of 20, received the best pass of his life: he was introduced to the player Renato Portaluppi, better known as Renato Gaucho for being from Porto Alegre, the land of the gauchos, the cowboys. At that time, he was nothing less than one of the best attackers in Brazilian soccer. He was highly valued. And not only because of his technique on the court, but because of his physique: women died for him.
(SOUNDBITE FILE)
ANCHOR: O crack from 87, or my friend, Renato Portaluppi… Renatoooo
WOMEN: Aaaah
LISETTE: And Renato happy. He was also a womanizer. Clearly he and Kaiser shared that interest. So when they met in 1983, on Copacabana beach, they became fast friends.
KAISER: And from that moment on we were a friendship that lasted forever.
LISETTE: More than friends, they became brothers. They went everywhere together: parties, meetings, footvolley games, training. It was there that Kaiser experienced what the life of a famous soccer player was like in the middle of the 80s. Where Renato was, there was him. They were inseparable. And not only that: Kaiser made sure they couldn't even tell the difference.
If anyone saw Kaiser walking around Rio at that time, they could easily think he was a sports superstar. Especially if she went with Renato. They both walked showing off their sculpted bodies, wore large dark glasses, and Kaiser imitated Renato's way of speaking. Both had the typical haircut of the time: short on top, sideburns, and long hair at the back.
KAISER: The people were confused, this was a rotineira thing, understand? But then he never said that he was ele…
LISETTE: Kaiser says he never deliberately impersonated his friend. But there are stories that contradict it. Former players, like Marcelo Gonçalves, remember seeing him giving autographs in a shopping center pretending to be Renato Gaúcho. And once he even impersonated him to get into a party at an exclusive nightclub.
LISETTE: According to Kaiser, neither of them minded being confused. On the contrary, it was praise.
KAISER: But he's a homebody, he's got a polite face, he doesn't do anything wrong... he doesn't use drugs, he doesn't drink, so...
LISETTE: Because, Kaiser says, it seemed to him that Renato was a pretty, handsome, educated guy who didn't do anything bad in life like drugs.
As Kaiser rose to fame off the pitch, his soccer career continued. He says that he went through Botafogo and Flamengo again, two of the four most important teams in Rio.
According to him, both at Botafogo and at the other teams he says he played for, he gave his all during training sessions. Except when he had to practice with the ball, of course. If the ball was in the middle, Kaiser was on defense. If the ball was in defense, he was in the attacking zone.
When Ricardo Rocha, world champion in 1994, former Real Madrid and Flamengo player saw him train, he couldn't believe it. He asked Kaiser what was that strange way of playing. Kaiser, who always had an answer for everything, told him:
KAISER: O Tostão, I say that he played without a ball, and his faleieu is the same as OTostão, he played with a ball. I don't need the ball to play soccer.
LISETTE: He says that just as Tostão —one of the most famous players in Brazil— played without the ball, he did too. That he didn't need the ball to play soccer. Although he sometimes used other player names to justify himself. How José Reinaldo de Lima, for example.
But of course, saying that Tostão didn't play with the ball is just an expression because Tostão scored many goals during his career. What Kaiser is referring to is Tostão hitting runs towards goal without the ball to distract his opponents' defense, creating space for his teammates to score goals.
When the season began, his tricks to not play would also come.
KAISER: I infernized my life two judges so that they would expel me before the game finished…
LISETTE: He made life miserable for the refs to get him kicked out of the games. Especially if the same day of the game there was a party that he could not miss.
KAISER: Simulava contusões, no tinha resonância, eraa minha palavra contra a domédico. He said that he had particular problems...
LISETTE: He was faking bruises and since there was no MRI at the time, it was his word against the team doctor's. He once even carried a prescription from a dentist friend of his that said his injuries had to do with his teeth. That it was a strange neurological situation that needed further study before he could play again. He could even fake the death of his grandmother or his mother as many times as necessary. Kaiser was not short of stories. And he says it without a drop of shame.
Most of the time, the leaders tried to help him with hiring and rehabilitation, but, of course, nothing helped. Kaiser was permanently injured.
It's kind of hard to believe: soccer teams spending money for a player who never played a single game. Because when he signed the contracts—if this was true at all—Kaiser received a little money. So I asked him about this financial expense that his alleged injuries caused to the teams.
KAISER: But it could be a financial expense, but it was an energy profit, in a unit or group, you understand? I hardly…
LISETTE: He replied that beyond any expense that he could represent for the clubs, he represented an "energy profit", that's how he put it. Because apart from the parties that he organized and the women that he got for the players and managers, Kaiser was completely at his disposal and at his service.
From story to story, from conversation to conversation, from favor to favor, Kaiser increased his network of acquaintances. In Brazil, he became friends with great players like Bebeto, Ricardo Rocha, Carlos Alberto Torres… There are several photos of him with these great soccer figures having dinner, holding trophies or simply hugging at a party. All the posture of a superstar.
He also expanded his network by visiting exclusive restaurants to befriend the owners with a simple proposition: if they let him and the players eat for free, his business would gain visibility in the press. With the same promise, he became a promoter of nightclubs where he entered without paying and accessed the VIP areas. And he offered to introduce footballers to women, in exchange for contacting him with the coaches or leaders of the football clubs. With Kaiser everything was a transaction calculated to the millimeter and nothing with him was free. His strategy seemed foolproof. He was one of those men who could get to the most expensive places in Brazil without spending a real.
And he knew how to relate to all kinds of people, even iconic characters from Rio de Janeiro. Like Castor de Andrade.
SERGIO AMÉRICO: He owned an illegal pool, which here in Brazil is called Jogo de Bicho.
LISETTE: This is Sérgio Américo, a sports journalist for more than 30 years, who knows a lot about the history of Brazilian soccer. Especially the 1980s and 1990s, which was when Kaiser was active as a footballer.
El Jogo de Bicho, the pool that Sergio talks about, is a type of betting-based lottery that has existed there for more than 100 years. It is illegal, like all gambling in the country. But in practice the police do nothing about it, and tickets can be bought at any little store in Rio de Janeiro. The one who controls that game, of course, manages millionaire figures, but from hiding.
AMÉRICO: So, the owner of jogo do bicho was called bichero. Then Cástor was a bicheiro, and Kaiser was a friend of bicheiros.
LISETTE: Castor de Andrade was at that time perhaps the richest and most powerful of Rio's main bicheiros. Furthermore, he was considered one of the most feared gangsters in the city. He had bought several policemen, politicians and even judges... He was not one of the people with whom you could play. But that didn't scare Kaiser.
KAISER: Because I was raised not as a bandit. This negociode fuzil na cabeça, you know? It doesn't scare me there, understand?
LISETTE: Because he says he was raised among bandits and doesn't even get scared with a gun to his head. But there was something in particular that attracted him to a friendship with Castor de Andrade. The bicheiro had accumulated a fortune with the Jogo do Bicho but had to "wash" it, because it was illegal. So he decided to “invest it” —in quotes— in one of the smallest teams in the city: the Bangu Atlético Club. And Kaiser did his thing.
AMÉRICO: And it convinced him that he was a good soccer player. And what do I know, Castor understood that he did and hired him.
LISETTE: His plan was the same as always: stay on the team to say he was a player but never go on the field during a game. The journalist Sérgio Américo describes it like this:
AMÉRICO: That Carlos… while talking, sells geladeira for Eskimos.
LISETTE: That Carlos Kaiser, talking, can even sell a refrigerator to an Eskimo. He knew how to identify a person's weakness or need and exploited it. In the case of Castor de Andrade, his technique to entangle him in his tangles was praise, says the Brazilian sports journalist, Martha Esteves.
MARTHA ESTEVES: I was always praising Castor. Castor você é um pai para mim. There or Castor ficava envaidecido …
LISETTE: Especially since Kaiser kept telling him that he was like a father to him. With those words, he made up for his lack of performance on the court.
ESTEVES: So the Bangu is an example of what was done in the 70s, that makes sense. From throwing away a player who was not a player to play, for example...
LISETTE: Martha explains that Bangu is a good example of how small teams worked in the 70s and 80s: they signed players but not necessarily to play. Because many times the friendship with the leaders or presidents of the clubs, outweighed the talent. Like Kaiser, who in addition to praise, had a lot to offer the team. Because the goals that he did not put in the goal, he did them from the outside.
KAISER: I had everything or what a player wanted, do you understand? The journalist did not have access to the great players, but he got great interviews.
LISETTE: He also knew how to treat journalists because he helped them get exclusive interviews with the biggest soccer stars as long as they interviewed him too. He was a born public relations officer.
Sérgio Américo, the journalist we already heard, reported for Radio Globo in the 1980s and 1990s and remembers very well how Kaiser approached him the first times they met.
AMERICA: You wanted to be friends with me, right? "Hello Sergio, how are you? You are a crack". "You are the best journalist in Brazil. What an honor to be here by your side"... He treated you very well, do you understand? And, he was nice, right? That's how I met Carlos.
LISETTE: But of course, the compliments weren't disinterested. He tried to convince Sérgio, for example, to talk about him on his radio program and to announce his supposed contract signings with teams... Most of the time, Sérgio resisted. Especially if it was something that couldn't be verified or sounded wildly implausible. But sometimes Kaiser managed to convince him and Sergio sent him greetings when he was on the air.
Little by little, Kaiser built a small empire around him. An empire of sand that, of course, was destined to crumble. The first time he was about to be unmasked was when Castor de Andrade decided that he wanted to see him play for Bangu. Kaiser had already spent several months in the team but between alleged injuries and bruises that occurred during training, he had not played a single game. So one day in 1985, when Kaiser was 22 years old, Castor ordered the coach to put him to play in the match against the Coritiba team the next day.
His trainer knew that Kaiser was the type to go out almost every night to clubs and bars. So he called the ones he frequented the most to ask about him. When he found it, he gave him the bad news.
KAISER: I'm falei, because I'm four days a week and I'm on the boat, how do you want me to play?…
LISETTE: Kaiser tried to get out of the situation by saying that it was four in the morning, that he was still partying and that he couldn't play like that, without preparation. But the coach told him not to worry because he was only planning to put him on as a substitute. Kaiser, frustrated, hung up the phone and went home. He had to appear at the stadium as it was. The next day when he arrived, he sat on the bench as a substitute and the game started.
KAISER: 5 minutes Coritiba faces 1 to 0. 8 minutes or Coritiba faces 2 to 0.
LISETTE: Eight minutes into the game and Coritiba was already beating Bangu 2-0. Only 15 minutes passed and during that time the coach's walkie talkie rang. It was Castor ordering Kaiser into the game. Despite Kaiser's resistance, the coach warmed him up. And as he prepared himself, he began to wonder how he would get out of this mess. It was there that he heard the words that would save him: the screams of Bangu fans who were furious that the team was losing. They vented by attacking Kaiser because, after all, they had never seen him play. They started throwing all kinds of insults at him.
KAISER: I used the fence before entering the field, I bring the twisters and I'm expelled before… playing, right?
LISETTE: According to Kaiser, he jumped over the fence that separated the fans from the field and began to hit those who insulted him. Within minutes he was ejected before he could start playing.
He went to the dressing room to wait, happy because he didn't have to play but nervous about the reaction that Castor de Andrade would have. When he finished the game, Kaiser's teammates told him that he would hardly get away with it this time. Minutes later, Castor entered the locker room and before he could say a word, Kaiser was already warming up his ears. He looked at him and said:
KAISER: Deus me deu um pai levou e hoje me deu o segundo…
LISETTE: I translate it literally: “God gave me a father and he took him away and today he gave me the second. And when I was there and I heard all the horrible things the fans were saying about you… like you were a bandit…”
KAISER: I lost my head, the fence, but my contract ends here in 15 days and my man is free from me.
LISETTE: “I lost my mind, jumped over the fence and hit them. I'm very sorry Castor, in 15 days my contract ends and you are going to get rid of me”.
Castor stared at him, processing what he had just heard. After a moment, he smiled and according to Kaiser…
KAISER: E falou “Joel, double the salary of the Kaiser and renew for six more months”.
LISETTE: He told the assistant, "Joel, renew Kaiser's contract for 6 months and double his salary." Kaiser had managed to score a half court goal. Or at least that's what he always tells about his first step through Bangu.
But Kaiser says it was in '87 or so that he hit the high point of his career. His friend Fabio Barros, known as Fabinho, had been selected to play for Gazélec Ajaccio in France. At that time, Brazilian players were already at the top of the world and were highly valued by European teams. When Kaiser learned that Ajaccio were looking to recruit more stars, he jumped at the opportunity. He spoke with Fabinho and thus ended up almost 9 thousand kilometers away from his Rio de Janeiro.
KAISER: Not the first day I checked in, the stadium was full. I wanted her to have a thirty exhibition.
LISETTE: In your version of what it was like the first day you arrived in Corsica, the French island home of Ajaccio, the fans were waiting for you with a full stadium. They wanted Kaiser to demonstrate his great abilities. But he said he was very tired. So he looked for a distraction.
He asked Fabinho to get him a bouquet of flowers. He had seen that the team president was sitting in the stands with his wife.
Kaiser ran to the fence and jumped over it. He crossed the seats of the stadium and in front of all the fans he gave the flowers to the president's wife. She gave hugs and kisses to whoever accepted them, grabbed a Corsican flag, put it on as a cape, and kissed it as she went down. But just at that moment he saw a man take some soccer balls onto the field. The gesture of the flowers and the flag had not saved him from the demonstration that the fans wanted. One by one, the man lined up the balls.
But Kaiser, once again, took a step forward.
KAISER: All the balls that I had in the field were kicked to the arch, all, all, all, not collectively.
LISETTE: Kaiser kicked all the soccer balls into the stands, where the fans were. It was the perfect alibi: they left with a souvenir from his team and he wouldn't have to touch the ball much. His ruse was so effective that, according to Kaiser, even the president of Ajaccio was happy because he later told him...
KAISER: That after Napoleon was the most important face in the history of Corsica.
LISETTE: That after Napoleon he was the most important person in the history of Corsica.
The time at Ajaccio was easy for Kaiser. At least on the sports side. He says that from the beginning he was frontal with the leaders and told them that he did not want to play.
KAISER: President, you gangsters, do you understand? They had to take me to the festivities, they had to take me to travel…
LISETTE: In the version that Kaiser gave me, the team president supposedly belonged to a group of gangsters so his performance in the sport was the last thing he cared about. He hung out at parties, liked to travel, and just wanted to enjoy Kaiser's company, which attracted so many people. And that was perfect for him.
And although he was well received at those parties and knew many women, Córcega did not convince him. He didn't compare to his Rio de Janeiro.
KAISER: I'm wrong, I don't want to play with my bag, I want to go back to my country.
LISETTE: Kaiser wanted to return to his country, but the president of Ajaccio didn't want to lose him completely. So he allowed her to travel to Brazil on the condition that he eventually come back.
KAISER: They didn't sell me then, they borrowed me from Bangu, pro América, pro Botafogo, pro Vasco, pro Fluminense, do you understand?
LISETTE: He says that Ajaccio lent it to various teams in Rio but never sold it. Teams like the ones he mentioned: América, Botafogo, Vasco, Fluminense, and that he even returned to Bangu.
He told me he didn't stay more than six or eight months in each one. It was the maximum time that he could sustain the myth of his incurable injuries.
KAISER: Ah, an entire game, I wish that I played it a few tenths during my whole life I played it a lot.
LISETTE: He admits it himself: to say that he played 10 full games in his entire career is a lot. Almost an exaggeration.
His return to Bangú did not go unnoticed. With his skill in public relations, he managed to get the newspaper Jornal dos Sports to publish an article with the headline: “Bangu already has its king: Carlos Kaiser”. The short note mentioned his time in France, Mexico, the local teams and gave the team a good omen.
He also got a journalist from the newspaper O Dia to write a profile about him in which he recounted his time in France. But above all, he stressed that he was single. In the photo in the note, he is seen wearing the red and blue Ajaccio shirt, leaning against a soccer goal, with one hand on his waist and looking at the horizon. And well, here it is important to mention that Kaiser himself gave that photo to the newspaper to accompany the article. It is one of the many that he had —and still has—: him on the Ajaccio pitch in uniform.
But one of his key appearances was on the popular Brazilian soccer analysis show Mesa Redonda.
JOSÉ CARLOS ARAÚJO: Or Carlos Kaiser is a soccer player. I have a period of experience in the Basque Country…
LISETTE: In the video you see a young Carlos Kaiser with long, black, fluffy hair. He is very elegant: black blazer and white shirt. But above all, he seems very sure of himself and of the anecdotes he tells about his time at Ajaccio and his contract with Vasco da Gama. At one point in the interview, Kaiser hands over Ajaccio's red blue-collar shirt to José Carlos Araújo, one of the most important sports commentators in the country. Aráujo, smiling, receives her and shows off in front of the camera.
Kaiser had done it. He came to sit in the same chair where great players like Renato Gaucho, Romário, Edmundo, Gérson had been…
KAISER: I don't mind being known as the greatest player I've ever played soccer. I don't bother me at all with this.
LISETTE: He has no qualms about saying it: He's not at all bothered by being known as the best soccer player who never played. And he repeats it: he is NOT uncomfortable.
There are so many implausible details in the entire Kaiser story, but this is perhaps the one that stood out the most. He told me that in 2003, he broke his ankle and it was only this injury that allowed him to "break free" of a contract with Ajaccio. That is to say, taking accounts... he was contracted by this team for almost twenty years without playing a game, and this last contract ended when he was already about 40.
Even I, who don't know anything about soccer, know that none of this makes sense. I think it's something common among great impostors: from repeating deceptions and half-truths so much, they gradually lose the ability to calibrate their lies. And, over time, they come to say things so exaggerated that they are no longer credible.
But hey, that year Kaiser also got married and officially retired without scoring a goal. He hung up his boots and said goodbye to the sport.
Daniel: But the Kaiser myth doesn't end there. After the break, so many years of cheating ended up catching up with the star who never played soccer.
We'll be right back.
We are back on Radio Ambulante. I'm Daniel Alarcon. Before the break, our producer Lisette Arévalo told us the story of Carlos Kaiser, the emperor of Brazilian soccer.
So... To summarize... A 26-year football career, full of feats and anecdotes, as impressive as they are downright implausible... According to Kaiser, despite never having touched a soccer ball, despite having played only a dozen games competitive throughout his career, he always managed to get away with it. Well, almost always.
Lisette continues to tell us.
LISETTE: Since the day Kaiser hung up his boots, in 2003, he hasn't been heard from again. He decided to earn a living in other ways and took advantage of his good physical condition to become a bodybuilding trainer in a gym... In which, of course, he only trains women.
It was not until 2011 that his story was known: that of the best soccer player who never played. Two journalists from the O Globo media outlet heard various anecdotes about Kaiser and how he managed to deceive the most important clubs in Brazil. They decided to look for him, interviewed him and published a note titled: "The story of Carlos Henrique Kaiser: the Forrest Gump of Brazilian soccer." Forrest Gump, the character in the American movie that tells such epic stories that they seem made up... like Kaiser's.
The article made it clear that he was the biggest con man in soccer and compared his story to that of the character played by Leonardo Di Caprio in the famous Hollywood movie “Catch Me If You Can.” And although that note did not question the veracity of his anecdotes, the same medium released a television report that did. Or well, at least one of them.
The video shows journalist Renato Ribeiro interviewing Kaiser as they take a walk through Rio de Janeiro. He presents it like this:
(SOUNDBITE FILE)
RENATO RIBEIRO: Carlos Henrique Kaiser, 48 years old, had tours of big clubs in Brazil and abroad but probably never heard of him. Do you know or why? He never scored a goal, never took a decisive step. I never gave a disconcerting dribble. The specialty of this attacker was not to play.
LISETTE: Kaiser is walking next to Renato with his hands in his pockets. He has dark glasses with a white frame. As Renato introduces him, he smiles slightly, mischievously.
In the report, Kaiser tells the same stories he told me for this episode. His time at Vasco, Bangu, Ajaccio... The parties, his friends... He also said that he pretended to talk on the phone with foreign teams to negotiate contracts that never existed... He talked about his supposed bruises and injuries so he wouldn't have to play. He looks safe, without shame to confess his truth of the facts.
Kaiser's friends also appeared in the report, corroborating their stories. Like Ricardo Rocha, telling about how he spent his entire career running away from the ball. And Renato Gaucho himself once recounted that Kaiser entered a party posing as him.
(SOUNDBITE FILE)
RENATO GAÚCHO: When I look, the face falou like this:, no, or Renato is already inside. It was a mini clone meu, né?
LISETTE: He says Kaiser was his mini clone.
After hearing their stories, the journalists decided to check out one in particular. I didn't mention it before, but it's important. According to Kaiser's account, in 1984, he was part of the Independiente de Argentina squad. The year is key, because it was when they won the intercontinental cup in a final against an English team. Nothing less than the legendary Liverpool. And even though Kaiser watched it all from the sideline, he spoke of that win with a lot of pride. So…
RIBEIRO: We linked up with the Independiente and there was still a Carlos Henrique playing for it, but he was Argentine and not Brazilian.
LISETTE: They called Independiente and the club told them something surprising: there was a Carlos Enrique on that team —who, let's remember, is Kaiser's real name— but he was Argentine, not Brazilian. Kaiser took advantage of the namesake to claim an Intercontinental Cup. But in the report they do not confront him.
Even so, Kaiser continues to affirm that yes, he was champion with Independiente. In other words, he continues to pretend to be that Carlos Enrique.
I decided then to look for him, the Argentine, to see what he had to say on the subject. He told me that it was only recently that he learned of Kaiser's existence and what he was doing. And that he was furious when he found out that she had impersonated him.
CARLOS ENRIQUE: The first thing that came out was a bad word, did you see? You laugh but bitch.
LISETTE: Because, in hindsight, Kaiser impersonating him might explain why his career never took off.
ENRIQUE: But you don't know how much damage it did to me… Besides, at my best moment. And I had the possibility of… of emigrating abroad and it never happened to me and having a clue and coming to break it. And I say what happens that everything is given to me... I am not given. Do you understand me? Later, when time passed, I saw that there was another Enrique.
LISETTE: By using his name, Carlos Ennrique, and his performance at Independiente to network, Kaiser had achieved what the Argentine never achieved. It is his theory, nothing more, of course, that we cannot verify.
But it is for this and much more that Carlos Enrique does not consider that Kaiser's actions are something to be celebrated. And much less idealize.
ENRIQUE: The mischief is all beautiful. Do what you want with your mischief and with your life, not with the life of another and pretending to be someone else. I explain?
LISETTE: The reality is that for Kaiser it was not so serious that the truth about his time at Independiente de Argentina was known. Especially since he has always been firm on his version and no matter how many times he is denied, he continues to insist that he is telling the truth.
But Independiente isn't even the team at the center of its story. The one that is is Ajaccio, which is supposed to have had him under contract for more than 10 years. No one had publicly questioned that part of his life. Until it reached international ears.
LOUIS MILES: My name's Louis Myles, I'm a film director and I made a feature documentary on Carlos Kaiser.
LISETTE: This is the English documentary filmmaker Louis Myles. He learned about Kaiser's story from some producers who read about him on the Reddit social network, and wanted to make a documentary about his story. Louis liked the idea and in 2015, he and his team traveled to Rio several times to record. There they interviewed Kaiser, players who knew him, soccer leaders and different friends of his.
MILES: But we did 72 interviews and not one single person hated him, really.
LISETTE: What surprised them the most was that they interviewed more than 70 people and none of them hated Kaiser. And not only that, but they even corroborated certain anecdotes told by him. On that first trip they confirmed, for example, that he had been at Botafogo, Vasco, Fluminense, Bangu, Flamengo and even Ajaccio, at various times between the 80s and 90s.
But on the second trip, instead, they began to hear conflicting accounts and even encountered people who went against Kaiser.
MILES: But then we also had people sort of going against him as well. And so he's sort of saying, well, that didn't happen like that or it didn't happen at all.
LISETTE: Some clubs and players that Louis contacted, for example, denied that Kaiser was on their team. And there were players who said that he was never part of those clubs and that he simply bought the shirt of the team he wanted, like Fluminense for example, and walked around Rio de Janeiro with the attitude and confidence of a player. But then when Louis interviewed former workers and players from those same teams, they were told that Kaiser had indeed been there.
It's all very confusing. The explanation that Kaiser has given to this is that the clubs do not want to accept that they were deceived, so they prefer to deny it. Because in addition, Louis verified that Kaiser was indeed registered as a professional soccer player in the Brazilian Soccer Confederation.
I have personally tried to contact many of the players that Kaiser mentions in his stories but have received no response from most. And the few that did reply said they didn't want to do an interview about Kaiser. Except for one: Miraldo Câmara de Souza, known as Ado, who played for Bangú at the same time as Kaiser. At first he told me via WhatsApp message that Kaiser never played on his team. But then he sent me another message telling the famous anecdote of the fight with the fans at Bangu.
And so we could keep going around with each of his statements. It's a common thing when talking about Kaiser and his life: when you think you have the truth, another version appears that changes everything.
Louis told me that for his documentary, Kaiser was the one who contacted them with potential interviewees. He was in control of who they talked to and who they didn't. And although at first that helped them, later they decided to investigate more.
MILES: This is the thing: we, we were in a game of cat and mouse. So we, we started getting interviews outside of him setting them up for us.
LISETTE: They were playing cat and mouse, Louis says. So they investigated, they talked and interviewed more people, and there they got the information of someone who was willing to tell them a different story.
MILES: And someone tipped us off about who to speak to to tell us another story about Kaiser. So we found out about Fabinho.
LISETTE: Fabinho, Fabio Barros, Kaiser's friend who had played for Ajaccio.
MILES: Because we were making an international film, he said, I can't, I can't have the name of the club I played for a few years to be, you know, to be lied about. I've got to tell this truth.
LISETTE: Fabinho told them he couldn't lie anymore about a team he played for several years. Even less for an international production. This is an audio of Fabinho from the documentary, Kaiser the greatest footballer never to play football, published in 2018 where he gave the great revelation:
FABINHO: From that moment on I really preferred to say everything here that is and everything here that was. Or Kaiser never set foot on Ajaccio, not a city, much less not an airport.
LISETTE: He says that Kaiser never set foot in Ajaccio, nor the city of Corsica, nor even its airport.
Fabinho says that this whole story about Kaiser as an Ajaccio player began when he returned from France in 1986 at the end of the year. His brother lived in his apartment and was a good friend of Kaiser's. And of course, when Fabinho arrived, Kaiser wasted no time in invading him with questions about what Ajaccio was like, what Córcega was like, what language they spoke, what the food was like, what the Club was like... Fabinho remembers asking him if he had some Ajaccio souvenir or if he could show him his professional player's card.
FABINHO: And I began to be my friend with him, going to the boats and driving the boats, saying that he was a player from Ajaccio with me.
LISETTE: They became fast friends and when they went out to the clubs, Kaiser would take the opportunity to say that he played for Ajaccio with Fabinho. And he just didn't contradict him.
FABINHO: So from the moment I asked for the wallet, I already knew, that it was precisely, I had told myself: this wallet is for me…
LISETTE: Fabinho says that his official Ajaccio player card was the most important document in his wallet. So when Kaiser asked to borrow it, he knew full well what he wanted it for. If he could create a replica of that card, Kaiser was on the other side.
FABINHO: He knew that here for him at night was a reference. It was like a soccer player contract.
LISETTE: The card was the closest thing you could get to a soccer contract with Ajaccio. The closest thing he would have to certify his supposed belonging to the team on his party nights.
At least that's what Louis Myles portrayed in his documentary with an acted scene where a young Kaiser is seen making his official Ajaccio card. You can also see the final product: a laminated piece of paper with the Gázelec Ajaccio logo, with Carlos Kaiser's data, his photo, and the years for which he had supposedly been hired. They are documents that until now Kaiser shows as evidence of his stories along with newspaper clippings where he is mentioned and photos with well-known players.
Louis Myles and his team also did another verification process with Fabinho. He took them to Clube dos Macacos, south of Rio de Janeiro. It is a very popular place where people go to play and watch football games on the weekends. Including Kaiser.
FABINHO: And it was exactly here that he idealized, right? Fazer those photos as fosse no treino do Ajaccio.
LISETTE: He says that it was there that Kaiser took those photos with the Ajaccio jersey as if he were training in France. For the documentary, Fabinho mimicked the fake poses in photos Kaiser had allegedly taken on the Ajaccio pitch. One of them was the photo that had appeared in the O Dia newspaper that I already mentioned: Kaiser leaning on the soccer goal looking at the horizon. Fabinho's impersonation was an attempt to geolocate Kaiser's photos and show that they had been faked, taken on that pitch in Rio and not in France.
The exercise worked: when watching the documentary, you can see that it is the same place with small changes due to maintenance of the club.
FABINHO: Quem é do métie barnacle so fast that I don't have anything to see. First, he is wearing an official game shirt, do you understand me?
LISETTE: He says that anyone who knows a little about the soccer industry could tell that it's a photo with a fake pose. Mainly because a true player would never wear an official team jersey for training. Also, that Kaiser is never seen training with his teammates. He is always alone either with one arm raised shouting and with the ball on the floor, or doing what in Ecuador is known as "cascaritas", and in Argentina as "jueguitos" or "dominadas"... Which is basically going too far the ball from one foot to the other without letting it touch the ground.
Meeting Fabinho and his story changed everything for Louis and his team. It was unique information, that no one else had told him until that moment. They had managed to beat Kaiser at his own game. In the end it was they who had the upper hand.
MILES: Well, our reaction was we can't tell Kaiser this. We need to keep Kaiser away from the story for as long as possible so we can get more people to back this up.
LISETTE: He says his first reaction was to hide this new information so Kaiser wouldn't find out. They wanted to buy time and find more sources to support Fabinho's version.
But nothing goes unnoticed at Kaiser.
MILES: And then the next morning, he phoned up, absolutely furious.
LISETTE: Kaiser called them the next day. Furious. He had found out that they had spoken with Fabinho. Louis and his team told him it was best if they met in person for lunch and a chat. So they decided to meet at a restaurant in the Botafogo neighborhood.
According to Louis, Kaiser was waiting for them outside when they arrived. He could tell by leagues that he couldn't contain his anger. It took hours to calm him down, at one point he was crying with anger, but they were finally able to convince him that they needed to talk quietly, and they went, for the first time, to Kaiser's apartment.
MILES: We went up into this one and a half bedroom flat, in Flamengo, which have been very rundown. There was a grotty matress on the floor, which stank of it, no bed sheets. So he's not living in the best circumstances.
LISETTE: It was a one and a half bedroom apartment, with an old mattress, no sheets, and Louis says it had a foul odor. It was evident that he was not living in the best conditions. Kaiser sat in a chair next to a small refrigerator almost full of magnets with phone numbers for fast food, gyms, pharmacies, water services...
She was trembling, moving her hands and feet anxiously. He went from being the confident and canchero man who told his stories with ease, to being small, vulnerable.
So before we started shooting, Louis talked to Kaiser to let him know what the focus of that interview was. They did not want him to tell them the same anecdotes that he had told other journalists countless times. And the same ones that three years later he would tell me for this episode. They wanted more. Louis told him that he should tell them exactly how he managed to fool so many people because it would make him look better in front of the audience.
MILES: He then proceeded not to do that. He proceeded to give us a nearly three hour long interview about his lies from him and how hard life was and, and about all the bad things that happened to him.
LISETTE: But Kaiser did everything but that. In an interview of almost 3 hours, he remained in the same false versions that he had given. He talked about how hard his life had been and all the tragedies that had befallen him. This is an audio of Kaiser speaking in that interview:
KAISER: I swallow very dry. Eu sou um cara muito sequelado. Maybe that's why he has lived so much life two others, two players, né? That it was not to stop and think about my life.
LISETTE: He told them that he is a guy who has been hurt a lot and has suffered a lot. That maybe that's why he lived the life of the other players. To not stop and think about yours.
The interview continued with Kaiser telling what we already know: that he had a sad childhood, that he was stolen from his biological mother, that his adoptive mother was an alcoholic...
KAISER: Do you know, why, because of such adversity that you live with, with so much malandragem face that ouvocê é malandro or ouvocê otário, do you understand?
LISETTE: That he lived in an environment of such adversity in Rio that he only had two options: either become a thug or a loser.
At the end of the documentary interview, Kaiser says that no player or manager had denied it up to that point. That Fabinho was the first and that this shows the respect that the people in the world of football that he knew during all those years had for him. And that he was upset because someone he considered to be his friend had denied his story. But he clarified something key for him:
KAISER: I could have taken the same opportunity, I didn't prejudice anyone.
LISETTE: That he could have taken advantage of the opportunities he had but didn't hurt anyone.
KAISER: Cara, I never threw anything away at anyone, cara. A vida tirou de mim. I started losing my mother…
LISETTE: That he never took anything from anyone and that it was life that started taking everything from him, starting with losing his biological mother and then his wife, who also died 5 to 6 years after they were married.
KAISER: I shot my luck, no one shot, understand?
LISETTE: And that the only thing he took was reins over his luck, nothing more.
When I talked to him about this, Kaiser told me that if he hurt anyone in his life, it was himself.
KAISER: If I hurt someone by opening my hand on my career, I went myself.
LISETTE: Because with the contacts he had made in soccer and the access he had, he could have really become a star in Brazilian soccer.
Louis told me that when they finished that interview, they agreed to do one more to talk about Ajaccio. Two days later, when they met to record, Kaiser no longer looked frail. He just looked very angry. And when they asked him about his time at Ajaccio, he remained firm on his position: he was not lying, but Fabinho was. And he told them that the one they had to talk to was Alexandre Couto, another player who was with Fabinho at Ajaccio.
KAISER: Everything that Alexandre says is true, he is true in the words of him. Alexandre is authentic, he does not have two faces.
LISETTE: That he was a sincere, authentic person, who didn't have two faces.
Originally, Louis had already interviewed Alexandre and he had corroborated the Kaiser stories at Ajaccio. But when they contacted him again with the new information collected from Fabinho, Alexandre changed his version:
ALEXANDRE COUTO: Never play in Ajaccio.
LISETTE: Kaiser never played for Ajaccio.
COUTO: All the players know that this story is a lie, understand? Meantime because I know my history, mine is Fabinho who also passed through it. So everyone knows that he never passed through Ajaccio.
LISETTE: And according to Alexandre, every player who heard about that story knew it wasn't true. But Kaiser endeared himself, because of his charisma, because of how cool he was, and then they simply let his friend live off that fiction.
The truth is, Kaiser doesn't care how many people contradict his stories. He does not give his arm to twist. When I spoke to him about the documentary, he told me that he agreed to participate because he wanted to be honest.
KAISER: To be honest, I went to any interview that I give here, not in my country or abroad, and I will always say the truth, the truth doesn't bother me.
LISETTE: And that he has always told the truth in the interviews he's given and that the truth doesn't bother him. When I asked him about what Fabinho and Alexandre said, he gave me to understand that they were liars.
KAISER: But not meio, num universe of Carlos Alberto Torres…
LISETTE: That of all the famous players who were interviewed for the documentary, only two denied their story. And that, according to him, they did it because they wanted to have a few minutes of visibility. Nothing else.
There is something important to say here. A story like Kaiser's could hardly be repeated now. Mainly because in the 1980s and 1990s, there weren't the verification tools that we have today. It was easy for a player to come to a club and say that he had played anywhere - from Arabia to France - and for the leaders and presidents to believe it. It was the perfect setting for Kaiser to build his myth.
My colleagues from Radio Ambulante tell me that in soccer there is something called dribbling. Some players have it, most don't. It is the gift of avoiding defenses, having a lot of waist, making a lot of feints. It is the art of deceiving with the ball.
Gambeta is what Kaiser has.
When I asked him very specific questions, he would answer me with something that had nothing to do with it. She dribbled me with her elusive responses. He brags about cheating soccer clubs in Brazil and abroad, but when you confront him, he doesn't accept any questioning. Instead of answering, he talks about how miserable his life has been.
At the end of our last interview, I asked him perhaps the most important question of all.
Many question or wonder if the anecdotes and stories he tells are real or not... And what does Kaiser think about this?
KAISER: Prove what you wanted. I am not trying to prove anything to anyone. Be it true or be it a lie. Each one that draws its own conclusions.
LISETTE: Let whoever wants to believe believe. That he is not going to make an effort to make people believe him. Let everyone draw their own conclusions.
Daniel: Lisette Arévalo is a producer for Radio Ambulante. She lives in Quito, Ecuador.
Special thanks to Louis Myles and Rob Smyth. We learned many details of this story thanks to his documentary and his book Kaiser: The Greatest Footballer Never to Play Football. Thank you also for allowing us to use audio from your documentary for this episode.
Since that documentary was released in 2018, Kaiser has returned to fame. He was once again invited to the Brazilian soccer program Mesa Redonda.
Thanks to journalist Sabrina Duque for her help with the translation. And a special thanks to Pablo Iragorri for bringing us this story.
This story was edited by Camila Segura, Nicolás Alonso, Luis Fernando Vargas, and myself. Desirée Yépez tried to do the fact-checking. Sound design is by Andrés Azpiri and Rémy Lozano with original music by Rémy.
The rest of the Radio Ambulante team includes Paola Alean, Aneris Casassus, Emilia Erbetta, Xochitl Fabián, Fernanda Guzmán, Camilo Jiménez Santofimio, Ana Pais, Laura Rojas Aponte, Barbara Sawhill, David Trujillo and Elsa Liliana Ulloa.
Carolina Guerrero is the CEO.
Radio Ambulante is a podcast from Radio Ambulante Estudios, produced and mixed in the Hindenburg PRO program.
Radio Ambulante tells the stories of Latin America. I'm Daniel Alarcon. Thanks for listening.
Copyright © 2022 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR's programming is the audio record.
