Anyone who played Pro Evolution Soccer 4, 5 or 6 will know all about Adriano Leite Ribeiro.The Brazilian forward was an absolute machine in the old games, wreaking havoc with his 99 short power.The rumour goes that Adriano was Konami executive Shingo 'Seabass' Takatsuka’s favourite player, and so he demanded The Emperor be the best player in the game.But even he couldn’t have foreseen how legendary the former Inter Milan ace would be.For a period, Adriano looked like he could become a legend in real-life, too. A run of eight goals in nine Serie A games for Parma at the start of the 2003/04 season earned him a big-money move to Inter Milan and he looked like he could be the heir to the original Ronaldo.What followed, though, was a sad decline, sparked by the death of his father in 2004.Adriano turned to alcohol to cope and his weight shot up as a result. Inter Milan covered up his drinking by saying he was injury, but the Italian club eventually decided to get rid of him.He was loaned out to Sao Paulo in 2008 and spent the majority of his remaining playing days in his native country, suiting up for Flamengo, Corinthians and Atletico Paranaense.But as his peak Adriano was close to unstoppable, and BT Sport have posted a video proving as much.
Combining blistering pace, immense power and a devastating shot, Adriano was the real deal.
But the passing of his father had a real impact, the former Brazil international admitting in 2018 that it sent him into a downward spiral.
“Only I know how much I suffered,” Adriano told Brazilian outlet R7, per the Daily Mail.
“The death of my father left me with this huge void, I felt very lonely. After his death everything got worse, because I isolated myself.
“I was alone in Italy, sad and depressed, and then I started drinking. I only felt happy when I was drinking, I'd do it every night.
“I drank everything I could get my hands on: wine, whisky, vodka, beer. Lots of beer.
“I didn't stop drinking and in the end I had to leave Inter.”
Javier Zanetti, meanwhile, shared a heartbreaking story about his former Inter teammate’s demise.
“Adriano had a father who looked after him a lot and kept him in line,” Zanetti said in an interview in 2018, per FourFourTwo.
“But then something unimaginable happened: he got a call from Brazil and was told that his father had died.
“I saw him cry. He threw the phone down and started screaming. From that day on, [Inter chairman Massimo] Moratti and I decided to take him in like a brother and protect him.
“He kept playing football, scoring goals and pointing to the sky, dedicating them to his father.
“But after that phone call, nothing was the same.
“Ivan Cordoba spent one night with him and said, ‘Adri, you’re a mix of Ronaldo and Zlatan Ibrahimovic. Are you aware that you could become the best player ever?’
“But we didn’t ever succeed in pulling him out of depression.”
A sad tale, but the footage of Adriano banging them in will remain forever.