Six contemporary football stars come from humble backgrounds.

Unlike Pirlo, Kaka, and others who were fortunate enough to be born into wealthy families, Ronaldo, Ibrahimovic, Alexis Sanchez, and others all experienced difficult childhoods, struggling to make a living.

Alexis Sanchez

The Arsenal star comes from a poor family in the Tocopilla mining region. Alexis's father, a miner, left the family when he was a child. The Chilean striker lived with his mother and stepfather in a small wooden house, alongside his 17-year-old sister Tamara, his 32-year-old sister Marjorie, and his older brother Humberto. To help support his family, Alexis had to wander the streets performing circus acts, begging for pennies from passersby with dangerous acrobatic performances.

“Alexis could wash cars or perform acrobatics for people to earn a few pennies. Sometimes, Alexis was so hungry that he would knock on neighbors' doors to ask for bread. But they would mock him and refuse. On those occasions, Alexis would go out into the streets to perform tricks to earn money,” Humberto told The Sun (UK) about his younger brother’s difficult childhood. Thanks to his natural talent and determination to escape poverty, Alexis has become the brightest football star in Chile today. Before joining Arsenal last summer, he played for Barca (Spain), Udinese (Italy), and River Plate (Argentina).

Franck Ribery

Ribery was born in Boulogne-sur-Mer, a city in France known for its slums and anarchy, and grew up in one of its poorest areas. When he was two years old, his family was driven into bankruptcy by a car accident. Ribery miraculously survived, but required over 100 stitches, leaving him with two deep scars on his face – the reason he later earned the nickname "Scarface."

In 2003, at the age of 20, before joining Stade Brestois, Ribery still had to work as a construction laborer with his father to provide for the family's daily meals, while simultaneously practicing football – a sport that helped him relax after hard labor. Ribery's life and his family's life only took a turn for the better when he caught the eye of scouts from Metz FC. Ribery then went to Türkiye to play for Galatasaray, was called up to the French national team, returned to France to play for Marseille, before joining Bayern Munich. "If it weren't for football, I would probably have joined the ranks of the unemployed like many of my peers in the slums. I can never forget that difficult past," Ribery once shared.

Angel di Maria

Born into a family of three children, Angel Di Maria grew up in Pedriel, a poor city in the Mendoza region of western Argentina. As a child, Di Maria and his two sisters helped their parents work in the coal mine. He showed early talent for football, but due to poverty, he didn't have a decent pair of shoes and often had to go to training hungry.

That impoverished past, as Di Maria himself later admitted, gave him a sensitivity that his colleagues, born into wealth and privilege, lacked. The winger always thought of his family first when earning money. After transferring from Rosario Central to Benfica, Di Maria advised his father to quit his job as a mine worker and bought his parents a new, fully furnished house.

Luis Suarez

In Suarez's memory – one of his parents' seven children – he remembers playing football barefoot on the rough streets of Salto, a poor city nestled on both banks of the Rio River in Uruguay, at the age of six. At seven, the family moved to the capital, Montevideo, where his father, a dockworker, hoped to find work to support the family of nine.

But despite growing up in a filthy city rife with pollution and social ills, Suarez nurtured his will and passion for football. He viewed street matches as a training ground, honing his technical skills, cunning, and a touch of instinctive madness that later got him into trouble on numerous occasions.

At the age of nine, he caught the eye of scouts from the Nationals club. However, his erratic temperament at the time led to a premature end to what seemed like a promising career for the striker. Then, a fateful encounter with Sofia Balbi, the woman who would later become his wife, changed Suarez for the better. His love at first sight became the driving force behind his success. He rose rapidly after moving to the Netherlands, playing for Groningen and Ajax, before shining at Liverpool and being signed by Barcelona this past summer.

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Zlatan Ibrahimovic

The current Paris Saint-Germain star is the result of a poor and turbulent marriage between his mother, Jurka Gravic, a Croatian woman, and Sefik Ibrahimovic, a Bosnian father with a severe alcoholism problem. Like many children born into immigrant families in a foreign land, Ibra faced discrimination from a young age. His life was further challenged when his parents divorced when he was only two years old.

As Ibrahimovic later recounted his childhood, he frequently stole, having no other choice given his upbringing in impoverished immigrant neighborhoods. But it was this difficult life that forged his strong, indomitable will, qualities that grew alongside the football talent he honed with his friends on the streets.

At the age of 15, despite being a talented young player at Malmo FC, Ibra almost gave up football to work as a dock worker at the local port to help his mother make ends meet. However, he changed his mind after a coach from the club personally visited his home to convince him to focus on football as a way out of poverty. The rest is history, as Ibra shone at Malmo, catching the eye of scouts at Ajax Amsterdam – the starting point for his later adventure with a series of top European clubs.

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Cristiano Ronaldo

Despite being the world's number one football player, Ronaldo was almost abandoned by his mother, chef Dolores Aveiro, while she was pregnant. His arrival at that time made life even more difficult for the already struggling family of four, leading to his parents' separation.

At the age of 13, Ronaldo was expelled from school for throwing a chair at a teacher who had belittled his family's poverty. At that time, the future Real Madrid superstar considered dropping out of school and football to work and help his mother support the family. But his mother, Dolores, disagreed, wanting her son to continue pursuing his passion for football.

That was a pivotal decision that would change Ronaldo's life forever. He was recruited by Sporting Lisbon at the age of 12 and played for the U16, U17, U18, B, and first teams all in one season (2001-2002), before being bought by Man Utd in the summer of 2003.

According to VnExpress.net