When Bayern Munich defender Dante was called into the Brazil squad to face England at Wembley last month, one of his former clubs made sure to send well-wishes his way.
"Congratulations, Dante!" read the special message on Juventude’s official website. The website’s brief bio of the 29-year-old also made sure to point out that he had been developed at the Caxias do Sul club in southeast Brazil, where for two seasons in the early part of the last decade he played top-flight soccer with the now-fourth division Parakeets.
Their claim was only partially true, though.
While Juventude did provide Dante with an opportunity in professional soccer, no one was, or has been, more responsible for Dante’s development as a footballer than Dante, himself.
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Born into poverty in Salvador, Dante played for a handful of teams in Bahia state before realizing he’d have to leave home to continue his search for a professional club willing to take him on. But his family had no money, and at 15-years of age, neither did he. So he sold the only possessions of value he had – his TV and video game console – to fund the bus tickets that would kick off a two-year road trip.
"My grandfather said it was crazy talk," he told Brazil’s SporTV following his national team call-up. "But I had a dream. Something told me it was what I needed to do."
Stops at Fluminense, Portuguesa, Matsubara and Capivariano yielded nothing, but a two-day bus ride to Caxias do Sul (think Halifax to Atlanta) resulted in a try-out, a contract and some warmer clothes.
"(Juventude) saw that I didn’t have much clothing," said Dante, citing the cold and wind of Rio Grande do Sul.
But the club gave him some sweaters and jackets, along with lodging, and after a year in the youth setup the defender was promoted to the senior team. He played parts of two seasons before being snapped up by Ligue 1 side Lille who, along with many teams in Europe, were busily taking advantage of one of Brazilian club soccer’s more meagre eras.
In 2004, Dante left Brazil with less than 50 professional appearances to his name and no experience with the national team at any level. Hardly anyone in the country knew anything about him when he departed, and until he joined Bayern Munich last summer he barely registered in the Brazilian soccer consciousness.
All that has since changed. After playing only 12 matches for Lille, Dante was sold to Belgian side Charleroi for 100,000 euros and 18 months later he joined Standard Liège, for whom he’d get regular soccer and have a hand in the 2008 title.
But it was at Borussia Mönchengladbach that Dante really started to get noticed. A favourite of former manager Michael Frontzeck, he played in all but two of Mönchengladbach’s matches during his first full German campaign at the club in 2009-10 and by last season had become widely thought of as a top Bundesliga defender.
With Marco Reus banging in the goals and Dante keeping them out, Mönchengladbach finished an unlikely fourth in the table, earning a Champions League playoff place.
Dante’s reward for his hard work and burgeoning reputation was a summer transfer to Bayern Munich and, finally, some good luck.
A December knee injury to fellow Bayern defender Holger Badstuber ensured the Brazilian would have a regular place in the squad for as long as he remained fit (he has so far played every minute of Bayern’s Bundesliga season), and a thigh injury suffered by Thiago Silva in January opened up an extra place in Luiz Felipe Scolari’s Brazil squad to face England. He picked Dante.
And so, 11 years after rolling into chilly Caxias do Sul after 52 hours on the bus, Dante became a Brazil international. Not that his selection came as a surprise to anyone who had followed German soccer this year or last.
But by and large his story remained unknown and untold until his call-up — the latest chapter in a tale that is, quite literally, rags to riches.
Jerrad Peters is a Winnipeg-based soccer writer and author of We Call it Soccer, published in 2010. You can follow him on Twitter.