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Will Adriano Ever Rediscover His Form?
Adriano was once one of the world’s most feared strikers, however now he can’t even make it onto the Inter substitute’s bench. Carlo Garganese asks if the Emperor will ever be the same player again…
Adriano Leite Ribeiro first moved to Serie A in 2001 at the age of just 19, when Inter signed him from Brazilian club Flamengo.
His phenomenal talent became evident just nine minutes into his debut, when he scored with a ferocious free-kick in a prestigious pre-season friendly at the Santiago Bernabeu against Real Madrid.
In January of that season Adriano was loaned out to struggling Fiorentina and the teenager came close to keeping the Viola in Serie A after a series of stunning performances that yielded six goals in 15 appearances.
This caught the eye of Parma, who bought half of his contract in the summer of 2002. With the Gialloblu Adriano was unstoppable and he banged in 22 goals in just 36 games and formed the league’s most fearsome partnership alongside Adrian Mutu.
In 2004, Inter finally decided to buy back the other half of his ownership and handed the prolific marksman a four-a-half year contract.
By now Adriano was undoubtedly one of the best strikers in world football and during the 2004/05 season he scored an incredible 40 goals in all competitions for club and country.
However things then started to go wrong. In 2005/06 Adriano still managed a highly respectable 13 goals in 30 appearances but something didn’t seem right.
The explosiveness and fire from Adriano’s game seemed to have gone and this was confirmed during the 2006 World Cup in Germany when, despite scoring twice, he was hugely disappointing and had just five attempts on goal in Brazil’s five matches.
News started to hit the press of Adriano’s off-the-field activities – his partying, drinking and womanising.
His form on the field suffered as a result and he scored a meagre five goals last season, contributing very little as the Nerazzurri won their first Scudetto on the field since 1989.
Adriano descended into depression and alcoholism and was affected particularly badly by the death of his father.
The 25-year-old now appears to be overcoming his personal distress and only last month he gave an interview where he declared that “my problems are over…I have found happiness again.”
However things on the field are certainly not improving for the Rio de Janeiro native. He has made just four appearances in Serie A this campaign, scoring once, and was not included in the Nerazzurri’s squad list for the Champions League group stages.
Adriano is now Inter’s fifth choice striker behind Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Hernan Crespo, David Suazo and Julio Cruz, and he has been unable to even make the bench for the recent league matches against Palermo and Genoa.
It is a sad demise for a player that seemingly had all the tools to go on and become one of the greatest strikers the world has ever seen. Adriano had everything – he had the power, the pace, the finishing, superb aerial ability and an absolutely lethal left-foot.
Today he is overweight, slow and lumbersome, and unless he is given more time on the field things are never going to improve.
Adriano certainly has time on his side, and at the age of 25 he has at least seven or eight years ahead of him at the very top.
If I was Adriano’s advisor I would be telling him to leave Inter and find a club that can give him regular playing time and allow him to find his rhythm. It really would be a dreadful waste of talent if he were to never recapture the form that once made him such a phenomenon.
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