Adriano Has a Story to Tell

Brazilian striker Adriano — once one of the most feared forwards in world football at Inter Milan — tells his own story to The Players' Tribune in his own voice: "Do you want to hear the truth? Straight from me? No bullshit? Well, pull up a chair then, brother." He talks about growing up in Vila Cruzeiro, the death of his father in 2004 that broke something in him at the height of his career, the spiral of grief and partying that followed, and what it cost him — and what, looking back, he wishes people had understood.