Dani Alves interview: 'I'll make it to the Premier League one way or another'
Beneath the bright lights of a photo shoot in a Paris hotel, a few hours before Paris St-Germain begin their tie away to Napoli last week, Dani Alves offers an assessment of his team that will come to sound prophetic once the French champions have suffered another night of European frustration.
“At other clubs I have been, at Juventus, at Barca, we had two ‘ships’, one for the domestic league, and another for the Champions League,” he says. “Not many teams have better players than PSG, but they need to understand the competition they are playing in. They are very comfortable in the French league, but they need to raise themselves for games against the biggest clubs.”
Though they avoided a second defeat in the competition, having lost at Anfield, the goalless draw in Naples left one of the most expensively assembled sides in history in danger of failing to progress from the group stage.
Had Liverpool not suffered their shock defeat away to Red Star Belgrade, PSG’s predicament would have been even worse, but they still are only third in their group and probably need to beat Jurgen Klopp’s side in a fortnight to leapfrog them into the qualification positions.
“I don’t think PSG really understood what they were confronting when they faced Liverpool,” adds Alves, who is close to fitness again having been sidelined since suffering a partial tear to his anterior cruciate ligament in May. “It was like they didn’t realise who they were playing.” Is this complacency being addressed? “They’re on their way to understanding it,” the Brazilian nods. “If not, they will learn the cost.”
A frank and thoughtful interviewee, who warmly welcomes each journalist on a long afternoon of private conversations with the international press, the 35-year-old Alves is unusual in being qualified to carefully rebuke a set of team-mates which includes such formidable names as Neymar, Kylian Mbappe and Edison Cavani.
In a 17-year professional career, he has won more trophies – 38 – than any active player, performed a pivotal role for three of the biggest clubs in the world and redefined what was expected of the modern full-back with his surging forays into attack.
The interview has been timed to coincide with the release of a documentary charting the rise of the great Barca team which Pep Guardiola managed. Watching him turn an under-achieving side into one which would win two Champions League titles with the most beguiling passing game, you wonder if Alves might agree that Manchester City are on track to emulate his alma mater.
“No,” he says, sharply. “They don’t have the same players. They don’t have the players to execute Pep’s strategy in the way that we did. At Barcelona, it wasn’t about winning all the time, it was first about how to win. That is a different matter to most clubs.”
Quite whether that is fair comparison given City’s formidable goal count is a moot point, though what is known is that Alves went very close to joining Guardiola’s Etihad project, turning them down to join PSG in the summer of last year. At the time, the decision was put down to personal reasons, with Paris more suited to the work of his model wife, Joana Sanz, although he suggests today that the city appealed more to him, too, than did life in Manchester.
To reject Guardiola was difficult, regardless that their relationship had suffered in his final season in charge of Barcelona, with Alves having taken issue with the manager’s decision to give notice on his job before the 2011-12 campaign had ended.
“We had some ups and downs in our relationship and, just before he left, he said something that really hurt me,” he says. “But he phoned me to talk about it and we had a very special talk. And I like people that are able to say they need to be forgiven and to ask for forgiveness.
“So turning him down was painful. In football terms he was one of the most amazing people I have known, completely obsessed with his work, but how he treated people was special, especially me.”
Despite his injury, Alves has talked about playing on for several seasons yet. When asked if he retains an ambition to play in the Premier League, he allows the translator a break and switches from Portuguese to English, apparently to emphasise his point.
“The idea that I might finish my career without going to the Premier League, it is not possible,” he says. “For sure, this is the most amazing football in the world. First, because of the respect for the players from the fans, and then because of the passion on the pitch. If I can play, that would be perfect, but I will make it there one way or the other.”
In perhaps the most touching thread of the Barcelona story, with his team-mate Eric Abidal struck down with cancer, Alves offered to serve as his liver donor because they share a blood type. In the end, Abidal’s cousin performed the role in the successful operation, though the gesture says much about Alves’s character.
The son of a farmer who grew up outside the city of Juazeiro in north-eastern Brazil, his story is typical of many Brazilian footballers, having emerged from humble roots to enjoy a life of riches. The father of two children, Daniel, 12, and Victoria, 11, by his first wife Dinora – all now living in Miami – he appears to have retained the humility sewn by his upbringing.
In a recent Instagram post, he called on the new far-right Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro, to correct “remarks made during the campaign and treat all people as human beings, regardless of their gender, their social status or their sexual orientation”, a bold comment given footballers’ elevated status among the Brazilian public and the fevered political situation in the country. Certainly it jarred with the support that Brazilian internationals past and present, notably Ronaldinho, Rivaldo and Tottenham Hotspur’s Lucas Moura, offered the divisive Bolsonaro.
“The most important thing in life is to know where you come from and I know where I come from,” Alves says. “My parents gave me a practical example of what life was about and I won’t forget that.” If he does fulfil his ambition of making it to the Premier League, you imagine that the game here will be richer as a result.
‘Take The Ball, Pass The Ball’ is out now on OurScreen Cinemas, and on DVD & Digital Download
