5 ways how Carlos Henrique conned his way to being the best footballer who never played
He's so good, he's having a biography written on his career - Kaiser : The greatest player never to have played football by journalist Rob Smyth, expected to be published in 2018.
The name of Carlos Henrique has been doing the rounds in social media, and he's now popular as 'the striker who never scored a goal'. Commonly referred to as 'Carlos Kaiser' due to his resemblance to Franz 'Kaiser' Beckenbauer, Henrique might just be the greatest farce footballer of all time. Today, we look back at his rather strange career, and disclose 5 of his antics that you could never imagine.
Kaiser was born in Rio Pardo, Brazil, in April 1963. He was gifted with a physique similar to that of a professional footballer, but had no ability on the ball whatsoever. He was not one to give up, though. So, did he train hard against all odds to reach his goal? Absolutely not.
He was in the youth ranks of Brazilian giants Botafogo and Flamengo, but never played a minute of senior first team football for either of them. His flaws were many in number, and he knew there was no way he could play at the professional level. He somehow managed to impress the scouts of Mexican club Puebla, and moved there at a young age of 16.
He was horridly exposed there, and released after a few months. That's when he decided to pull of a massive hoax in order to live his dream of becoming a footballer. A decade later, he had the privilege of being involved with some of the best clubs in Brazil. In the process, he conned the footballing world with tricks that'll baffle us. Here we'll be looking at five such tricks.
#1 "I injured my hamstring"
Kaiser kick started his farce football career by befriending popular professional footballers like Carlos Alberto Torres, and Renato Gaúcho. This enabled him to create a network that'd help him get recommendations at various clubs, whenever he needed a new one. He started off professionally with his youth club Botafogo, but signed a short contract and faked a hamstring injury in order to hide his inability to play football at that level.
As mentioned before, he had the physique of a footballer, and hence he'd spend his initial days at a club doing only physical training. The technology at that time was far from developed, and as a result, there was no way to confirm whether he really had an injury or not. So, he carried on.
He also had a dentist to falsely claim that he had focal infection, which helped him avoid getting caught, anytime a club seriously suspected him.