Dani Alves is preparing for one of the biggest matches of his life.
After leaving Barcelona last summer, the Brazilian has been in fine form for Juventus as they face Real Madrid in the Champions League Final on Saturday.
A win will mean a treble for the Italian club and their first time lifting the trophy since 1996.
In the build-up to the match, Alves wrote a personal piece on The Players Tribune, speaking about growing up in the Brazil countryside, the genius of Lionel Messi and all in all how much of an emotional journey it was to get to where he is now.
Alves has a fantastic work ethic, and that is a large part of the reason as to how he has won 34 trophies in his career but it stemmed from his childhood by helping his father at work.
“It’s five in the morning, and the sun has not risen, but I have to go help my father on our farm before school.
“My brother and I walk out into the field, and our father is already out there working. He’s got a big, heavy tank on his back, and he’s spraying the fruits and plants with chemicals to kill the bacteria.
“We’re probably too young to handle the toxins, but we help him anyway. This is just our way to survive. For hours, I compete with my brother to see who can be the hardest worker.”
There is a reason that Alves and his brother worked so hard to impress his father.
“Because the one who our father decides has helped him the most gets the rights to our only bicycle.
“If I don’t win the bicycle, I have to walk the 12 miles from the farm to my school. The walk back from school is even worse, because the pickup football games in our neighborhood will start without me. So I run the 12 miles back and then just keep running right out onto the pitch.
“But if I do win the bicycle? Then I can get the girls. I can pick up one of them on the road and offer them a ride to school. For 12 miles, I’m the man.
“So I work my ass off.”
And for anyone who is accustomed to the metric scale, 12 miles equates to 19.3km, no wonder he is so fit.
