"This goes against everything our ancestors stood for. Are you sure you want to do this?"
Adam: "I'm sure!"
"Mom and Dad can't offer you any help. You'll have to handle everything yourself, sweetheart. Can you really stick with it?"
Adam: "I can!"
"Even if you have to spend every day stinking up a pigpen... Damn it! Who convinced our sweetheart to give up a perfectly good football career to raise pigs?!"
As the youngest son, born late in life, of Italy's goalkeeper, Adam Cudicini showed an extraordinary talent for playing with a ball as soon as he learned to walk.
Yarn balls, rubber balls, even the two X-balls of his hapless older brother, who had let his guard down during a nap... Whatever came his way, Adam could handle it with his feet, and he had the skills to outplay anyone!
Our family's going to have a striker! his goalkeeper father exclaimed with delight. At last, a Cudicini would be shooting at other people's goals!
But as Adam grew up, his father eagerly waiting for the day, his precious little striker prospect suddenly announced:
He was done playing football. He was going to start a farm!
Their sweetheart was going to grow up and raise pigs!
Wake up, Adam! We're a football family! Our mailbox gets a stack of trial invitations every day. Dad has plenty of connections and friends in the Italian national team, and your brother's a good player too. Why on earth would you go raise pigs?
Adam wouldn't listen. He was determined to do things his own way.
Once the farm was up and running, little Adam stood at the gate and beamed for a sunny opening-day photo. Beside him, his father, who was getting on in years and had crossed over into becoming a rural entrepreneur, looked utterly dejected.
But Adam lacked experience, and his little nest egg was soon gone.
His father seized the opportunity: "Come back to football! It's the world's number-one sport, and it gets tons of attention. You can make way more money than raising pigs!"
Adam had an epiphany: "Oh, right! If I advertise during the World Cup, surely I'll sell more piglets than I do now!"
His father: "..."
Adam eagerly packed his things: "I'm going to play football again. Aren't you happy, Dad?"
His father: "I have a bad feeling about this..."
*
Later, under the gaze of the world, a reporter interviewed the confident young man: "Adam, you went from total obscurity to winning the Ballon d'Or in just two years. Can you share your secret?"
"I don't know?" Adam replied innocently, in a way that made the reporter's fists itch. "I thought I'd get free advertising, so I gave it a try. Who knew it'd be this easy?"
Ignoring the reporter's stunned expression, he smiled shyly. "So, how about checking out Yaya Farm's pigs?"
Another book: [Football] The Great Manager, Starting from the Streets
This is the story of a homeless man.
He opened his eyes amid the billowing smoke rising from the Twin Towers.
Penniless and without memories, he dodged falling steel beams through sheer bodily instinct. From the rubble, he picked up a plane ticket and a passport. The passport's owner was named Hyman Aroja.
And so began his new life.
He had no ties holding him back. An old man led him onto a football pitch, and he never looked back.
"Hyman is a man whose face you can never quite make out," Ferguson said. "From his speech, his appearance, or his habits, you can't tell where he comes from. It's as if he sprang out of football itself, a wandering spirit haunting the pitch. But whenever he shows up, it means victory."
He was a man of few words, each sparse phrase like a chip of ice shaved from an iceberg.
"If you think of Hyman and the boss as hair dryers," said a certain heartthrob who wished to remain anonymous, "the boss blows hot air, while Hyman blows the Siberian winds, making you feel as if you've sunk to the bottom of the sea.
But you'll be more motivated than ever, fighting to reach shore and ride the crest of a wave. He's a leader."
Other than the rush of adrenaline when the score changed on the pitch, he cared about nothing.
"This year's Best Coach, and the youngest recipient ever: Hyman Aroja!"
"Hyman led his team to unprecedented success! An undefeated treble!"
"The man you'd most like to spend a night with: Hyman! He beat second place by more than ten thousand votes. I'm so jealous!"
Though Hyman's name eventually became synonymous with trophies around the world, when someone asked him:
If you could start your life over and leave one sentence for the person you were before you lost your memories, what would you say?
He lowered his head and thought for a moment, then answered calmly, "Glory is nothing." It was the journey that forged his soul.
He is Hyman Aroja.
A man who went from being a homeless wanderer using someone else's identity to a legendary manager who etched an everlasting mark into the history of world football.
Theme: The harder you work, the luckier you get.
