
A Soccer Con Man Who Couldn't Play the Game - dluan
http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/soccers-ultimate-con-man-was-a-superstar-who-couldnt-play-the-game
======
lordnacho
How many of you have not worked with someone whom you suspected of not being
able to program, despite being paid to do so?

Here's a description of an ex colleague of mine:

\- Asked me after 7 years about whether a system existed that could tell you
the state of the code at a given time. You know, because it's inconvenient
saving different versions in separate files.

\- Can't do anything other than changing literals without breaking it.

\- Can't tell you what the difference between an object and a class is.

\- Pretends his job is higher level than coding.

\- Since he can't do anything, goes to meetings explaining how he's the
architect behind it all. And gets credit for it.

~~~
rdtsc
Yap saw it. A large company someone new hired. Hung around for about a year,
managed to write 100 lines of code. Only 10 were ever accepted after peer
review.

However come meeting time, would be very vocal about random technologies --
we'd talk about spawning a process and he'd chime in how you can do this
complicated kernel trick with signals, or shared memory and whatnot. At first
everyone was impressed. Heck, I was.

After a while nobody saw any results from him though. When came time to show
his results he started to claim to have health issues. So was gone for a
while.

After a couple of months the manager caught on and kept assigning him
different tasks hoping they'd finally find something he's good at. Would get
as simple task, yet instead of just doing it, he would re-frame as some
complicated theoretical problem, which needed research and the solution needed
something like P vs NP solved in order to deliver it. Not sure if someone in
the end explicitly told him that "Look Pete, it is a test function, just write
the test function. You don't have to solve P vs NP to do it". (Pete is not his
real name)

But yeah he was invited to depart, after collected a nice salary for about a
year. He's probably at another company now doing the same thing.

~~~
Radim
Oh man, this brings back memories...

There was this company (shall remain nameless) where the product was always
"around the corner". Just one more week or two! Yes it doesn't work right now,
but these are minor things, let us iron out the final bugs!

This went on for almost _two years_.

Leadership being non-technical, they didn't know whether what the "technical
team" was telling them is true or not. They couldn't check, but were not
idiots, so eventually suspected bullshit. So they hired us as "crisis
consultants", to do an audit and put things back on track.

Needless to say, we had to scrap everything. Which, it turns out, was about
half a dozen unfinished PHP scripts and some apache configs... the result of
~4 man-years of work!

The main employee squirmed and lied and lashed back during meetings. Not a
pleasant experience at all. For anyone involved. When the true horror of the
situation became apparent, they had to be let go.

Of course, this "worked out" only because we had the leadership's full backing
(they really felt more shameful than angry, on account of their
mismanagement), and because we could stand our ground technically. Now what to
do if you're a grunt employee, without good access to leadership, observing
such bullshit unfold... difficult. Chances are, the bullshitters are better at
politics & smooth talking than you are, so confrontations are risky.

------
rdtsc
This applies to the startup scene.

I have seen it first hand, someone managed to convince a few investors who
were old and not very quick thinking that they should invest in his company.

The product idea was just awkward and made up. It was as if someone is given a
5 minute task to quickly think of a startup idea.

But he was a good smooth talker, so millions of dollars later down the drain,
with a private office in the Valley, he can now claim he was a serial
entrepreneur, CEO, mentor. He'd go to all meetups and give talks. Would
publish a blog post here and there so he was also an "author".

Every time he was asked to present his product or asked when it was going to
be shipped, he'd claim he saw this trendy technology at a meetup (last was
some container thing) and claimed he needed to rewrite his stack using that to
go "faster". That lasted for close to 5 years.

People claim it was a failure. I claim it was a major success for him. He's
probably off to the next adventure. Not bad overall. Ride the hype and you'll
make it!

~~~
betolink
I totally see this not only in the startup scene but life in general! in every
trade there is a charlatan that will fake mastery of the skills needed to
succeed.

~~~
rrecuero
I have definitely seen this happening as well. Being the hype and cool factor
of startups, wantrepreneurs are sprouting everywhere. It is usually easy to
spot them, all talk and nothing to show.

------
jjnoakes
It's hard to believe that no rumors were circulated among the players or
coaches of different teams, or at least, they were never strong enough for a
single person to investigate seriously. Especially with the amount of money
they must have been paying for nothing.

Although I guess if the fans are happy, the money is well spent...?

~~~
notahacker
I wouldn't be surprised to learn that he earned little or no money from most
of his clubs, posing as an injured player desperately hoping to resurrect his
career who was willing to train with them on a contract structured mostly on a
pay-as-you-play basis. I suspect his limitations as a footballer were slightly
exaggerated too: Brazilian Wikipedia records him as having made 15 appearances
for Fluminense, one of Brazil's bigger clubs, at one stage of his career. As
for the fans, I doubt many of them cared about or even knew the name of a free
transfer signing in the reserve squad.

That theory doesn't fit with the narrative that well, but if there's one thing
we know for sure about him it's that he knows how to spin a good story to the
media.

~~~
icebraining
Not sure if the Wikipedia page is true; it has no reference for the 15
appearances, as far as I can tell. Globo[1] says he only lasted a week in
Fluminense.

[1]
[http://globoesporte.globo.com/futebol/noticia/2011/05/briga-...](http://globoesporte.globo.com/futebol/noticia/2011/05/briga-
com-torcedor-bolas-na-galera-celular-falso-aventuras-de-kaizer.html)

~~~
notahacker
Globo seems to credit Ronaldo Torres with unmasking him as a fraud at both
Botafogo and Fluminense...

Separating the reality from the fantasy is difficult when the sources from the
period can't be relied upon: the Globo article also includes an clipping from
a Brazilian newspaper - presumably written by one of his journalist friends -
discussing him being the top scorer in the French third tier in 86/7! Which
I'm pretty sure he wasn't. Various accounts of him as a footballing charlatan
have this stint in France as a brief year in the middle of his career or an
extended stint in its twilight; have his career begin as a promising teenager
or as a 23 year old socialite. Attempts to total up his career appearances
seem to agree he played in around 30 first team matches for professional clubs
but disagree about whether these were only overseas or mostly in Brazil

Above all, even in the internet age you can see why some of his taller stories
might have been believed...

------
djhworld
Reminds me a little of Ali Dia
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ali_Dia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ali_Dia)

Might not have been a con as such, but amusing none the less.

~~~
mzs
Reminds me of
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Keane](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Keane)

~~~
rexreed
Wow - in reading about Walter Keane, I came across this old Life magazine
article about his wife... but then I noticed all the OTHER articles in this
magazine and I can't believe all the amazing stuff being written about here: a
new AI bot from MIT and Stanford, the World Trade Center being built in NYC,
computerization of India, Korea starting to manufacture semiconductors, and
more... WOW:
[https://books.google.com/books?id=2FMEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA56-IA1#v...](https://books.google.com/books?id=2FMEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA56-IA1#v=onepage&q&f=false)

------
billforsternz
At the lower tiers of the professional game, Brazilian footballers have an
advantage in foreign markets because their nationality has a kind of soccer
mystique. I can't find the exact quote, it was from an agent, saying it was
easier to place a mediocre Brazilian than a brilliant Mexican (Somewhere in
the book "Futebol: The Brazilian Way of Life" by Alex Bellos). I know my local
(second, third, maybe nth) tier professional team were very proud of three
Brazilians, apparently obtained as a job lot. They came complete with single
word names etc. After watching them play I was pretty sure the aquisition
strategy was to pick three random twenty something dudes off the street of Sao
Paulo or similar! These guys are sure to be good enough to play professionally
in New Zealand right! To be fair one of the three could play and he made a
decent career in Wellington. Daniel was his name if I remember correctly.

It looks like this guy took some advantage of this "Brazilian factor",
although it hardly explains his stints at huge clubs like Botafogo etc. in
Brazil itself!

------
tedmiston
Interesting that the article is almost a section by section copy of his
Wikipedia page.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlos_Kaiser_(footballer)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlos_Kaiser_\(footballer\))

~~~
zumu
Somehow fitting...

------
NTDF9
You see this everywhere. I saw this in school. Some kids got good grades but
really knew jack shit. The grades were a result of memorizing, cheating,
plagiarizing assignments, great rapport with professor and TA, great
recommendations.

All this and now, working at top tech company.

------
dmoy
Wow that's wild.

I guess it's nice to learn that despite technology opening up the doors to so
many other cons, it also closes the doors to some older avenues. I'd venture a
guess that the former significantly outweighs the latter, which is too bad,
but oh well.

~~~
kazinator
It's surprising that he wasn't uncovered through player stats. If a newspaper
headline hints about someone's scoring ability, wouldn't a few people get
curious and look up the actual stats in some soccer almanac to see how good it
is. Maybe that data wasn't easy to come by. In any sport that supports a
national stats-gathering bureaucracy, that would be hard to get away with.
E.g. baseball in the USA: you know everyone's "batting average" and so on.
(Not to mention that when players are traded, the teams or clubs have access
to this info!)

~~~
galuggus
Player stats are a really American thing.

------
raverbashing
Replace Soccer with pretty much anything and you can find similar examples.
Yes, even in the IT field

~~~
yuncun
Hard to fake injury tho

~~~
greedo
With HIPAA, employers really can't ask too many questions, and with the
ability to "work from home" you can hide easily. Eventually they catch on, but
it takes awhile. I've worked with a network "engineer" who pulled in six
figures, while doing basically nothing.

------
advertising
My favorite of all is the story of Elmyr de Hory who was the greatest art
forger of all time. Something like $60million or more worth of fake art sold
in his lifetime? Some of his Picasso's and others they say still hang in
museums too afriad to admit they are fakes.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elmyr_de_Hory](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elmyr_de_Hory)

Orsen Welles did a great movie on him and fakery in general -
[http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gIVgUjj6RxU](http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gIVgUjj6RxU)

The question of who are the real fakers in the art world, the forger or the
critics who are duped and swear that a painting is authentic.

The tragedy of Elymr was that he was a great painter but no one cared for his
original works and he was much more successful as a forger. The same for
Clifford Irving, ironically, who wrote Elymr's biography.

Irving wrote a fake biography of Howard Hues or something along those lines.

------
fauria
There are some stories where reality surpass fiction. In addition to this, I
found the story of Frédéric Bourdin to be hard to beleive yet real. The 2012
documentary _The Imposter_ tells the story in an astounding way:
[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1966604/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1966604/)

------
rublev
This reminds me of Elmyr de Hory. I watched him one of Orson Wells last movies
"F for Fake" and I have no idea what to make of it.

------
B1FF_PSUVM
Any chance this piece itself is a fake?

(Asking for a friend, as they say.)

------
dajohnson89
At risk of being called overly-PC, I must point out that the opening sentence
is could be seen as objectifying women:

>Brazilian soccer star Carlos Kaiser had it all: exclusive contracts with
popular teams, money, fame, and women.

I normally don't point out things like this, because hyper-sensitivity to
things that are often considered "offensive" when they really aren't can be
annoying. But I can't see how to interpret this other than "women" being a
possession.

To be fair, the author isn't likely being malicious, and I think he just means
that he's receiving the attention of lots of women. Such attention is,
arguably, an "object" in the sense of a commodity in the social marketplace
("that guy has a lot of women" is often seen as a compliment whether you like
it or not). But still, I'm surprised at how much the author's choice of words
bothered me. I don't even identify as a feminist in the traditional sense....
_shrug_.

~~~
Normal_gaussian
Whilst I have friends I don't own them. I endeavour to obtain more friends,
and I judge people as to whether they would be the kind of friend that I want
- short or long term.

To describe somebody as 'having' women is often accurate and useful - I do not
see why this should be penalised.

Now what does confuse and upset me is the way in which we rarely describe
women as being able to have lots of men - the _slut_ problem.

Enjoying regular sex and really exploring it, like any other hobby, seems
incredibly reasonable. Hoping to enjoy lots of sex sounds like something
anybody should want, and I don't see why this is limited as a descriptor for
men only.

In short, pretty much everybody likes a good fucking - why are we afraid to
say it?

~~~
kajecounterhack

      To describe somebody as 'having' women is often accurate 
      and useful - I do not see why this should be penalised.
    

Can you also see that someone might find this language offensive? That 'having
a woman' is somehow vernacular but you don't really see women being described
as having 'money, fame, men' ?

The language makes women sound like they are possessions.

~~~
Normal_gaussian
I argue that it is correct to do so.

Firstly I show how being grammatically in possession of something is not
derogatory:

> I _have_ friends

I then argue that this usage is in fact desirable

> To describe somebody as 'having' women is often accurate and useful

Which is followed by stating that I also consider the language to be one sided

> Now what does confuse and upset me is the way in which we rarely describe
> women as being able to have lots of men

So when you ask whether I can see that someone might find this language
offensive I can only say "evidently". And when you state that we don't see
women being described as having men I refer you to my earlier dismay. And when
you state that the syntax of the language makes it look like women are
possessions I wholeheartedly agree.

Can you see that removing reference to "a persons ability to access sexual
gratification" is detrimental to the expressiveness of the language?

~~~
kajecounterhack

      Firstly I show how being grammatically in possession of 
      something is not derogatory:
    

"Grammatically not being derogatory" is not the same as understanding how
something is actually being received. Language is only as useful as it
communicates messages, and I think you can believe what you do and still see
how someone could find this offensive, given the landscape which you recognize
is one-sided.

That is just what I meant. Justifying the usage as accurate and useful and
grammatically correct doesn't take away from the point that someone can
conceivably, justly, take offense to the language. It's valid for someone to
feel the one-sidedness and inequality inherent to the statement.

    
    
      Can you see that removing reference to "a persons ability 
      to access sexual gratification" is detrimental to the 
      expressiveness of the language?
    

If I'm reading this correctly, then I disagree. I think there may be a better
way to say what the author was trying to say that is sensitive to the
objectification women face.

~~~
Normal_gaussian
I understand how people take offense at this. However I am saying that their
offense is misplaced and the call for action validates the censorship of
womens sexual desires.

I think you understand this, we just sit wanting different things. To my mind
you are calling for the censorship of mens sexual desires to match.

In regards to finding a better way for the author to have said it, I imagine
simply replacing 'women' with sex would be both more explicit and absent of
trigger words.

~~~
kajecounterhack

      the call for action validates the censorship of womens 
      sexual desires
    

How does asking people to be more sensitive validate the censorship of women's
sexual desires? I think that's overthinking it.

Women are an underprivileged group right now, and nobody's "calling for
censorship." I'm just asking for kindness. Is there anything wrong in hoping
that people can be more kind?

There are many offensive things we avoid saying in general. It's not new, and
it's not different to ask that people respect one another.

------
BoozerDoozer
I find this story very hard to believe or grossly exaggerated. I mean this is
soccer we're talking about, not brain surgery. If you plucked a random
reasonably healthy person who had never seen a soccer ball in his/her life off
any street in America say, and put them in a pro club with a contract and
daily training with other pros, that person would probably become a reasonably
good soccer player. Was it really harder for him to just, well you know, play
than to fake it for 20 something odd years?

~~~
flukus
Apparently you are completely unaware of just how highly skilled they players
are at this level. If anyone could do it they would, it's a highly desirable
career.

~~~
jwdunne
This is correct. Football is "our thing" in the UK. Even in high school, some
kids just had a knack for it and could run rings around everyone. There was no
amount of training you could do to catch up to them. None of these kids went
on to play professional football - they weren't good enough.

