My dream as a boy wasn't to go to Disneyland, it was to go to Amsterdam. The land of smut. Go on the ghost train? Meet Mickey? That doesn't turn me on. I'd rather meet Mickey's wife. Minnie. If she's hot, I'll give her a squirt. My hobby is sex. I have a disease like they say Michael Douglas has.
The words of Kaiser (real name Carlos Henrique Raposo), a man who conned his way to a 26-year long career in football and the subsequent trappings of which it entailed, and the star of the fascinating documentary; Kaiser: The Greatest Footballer Never To Play Football.
Kaiser managed to play for the four big clubs in Rio De Janeiro; Vasco De Gama, Botafogo, Flamengo and Fluminese, as well as numerous others but a brief glance at his Wikipedia page suggests another story altogether:
Kaiser is a documentary about how a man with zero talent in football managed to carve a career in Brazil in the 1980s as a footballer, and not only survive, but flourish.
Rob Fulham, one of the producers of the film, spoke to Balls about how the documentary came about:
It was one of those very slow days at work. My day job isn't in the film industry I've got a normal office job.
I was sitting around when I should have been working, looking on the internet trying to do some research into Ali Dia who played for Southampton for about 25 minutes under Graeme Souness.
I stumbled across a Reddit forum and a story that was about three paragraphs, badly translated from Portugese into English telling the story of this guy who managed to have a 26 year career as a footballer without ever kicking a ball. And it was all through faking injuries, cosying up with club officials and directors.
Fulham sent the story on to a couple of his friends and, inevitably, the pub was where the decision was made to follow up on Fulham's discovery:
After the first pint we all agreed that it was going to be a really good film and someone would make it somewhere and they'd have great success with it... and then five or six pints later we decided we should have a crack at it.
The search for Kaiser began at the 2014 World Cup, when Fulham and producer Tom Markham went to Brazil and tracked down the elusive character at a gym in Botafogo, where he was working as a personal trainer (who only trained women), and was engaged to one woman he trained in the morning and another who trained in the evening.
Fulham admitted that their decision to go to Brazil was either going to be the most expensive holiday of their lives or we were going to come back with a film. Thankfully the later occurred with the documentary an intriguing look at man who by Fulham's admission had a 'thirst for that high society lifestyle in Rio in the 1980s'.
Indeed Kaiser's love of women and his charm were a crucial aspect of his survival at the clubs he was at, with the Brazilian adept at the social aspect of football; he would routinely arrange women for his team mates and on occasion his club's owner.
The film is not all high jinks and deception however, with the more tragic details of Kaiser's life explored towards the end of the hour and a half runtime.
But overall the story of Kaiser is one of success. Ali Dia only managed 25 minutes at the top level. Kaiser managed 26 years.
The 55-year-old's cunning is even present today with Fulham revealing that Kaiser is already using the press attention to the film to 'reinvigorate' himself:
Kaiser will definitely be using this to his advantage, he's already been doing a lot of press, news reports and the main talk shows in Brazil. He's using it to his advantage and reinvigorating himself.
Kaiser is currently out on VOD services such as iTunes and Google Play. You can watch the trailer below:
