Alexandre Pato

Alexandre Rodrigues da Silva, better known as Alexandre Pato, is a Brazil international football player who currently features for the Italian and European giants AC Milan. He plays as a striker and is renowned for the trick of carrying the ball on his nose.

Alexandre Pato came into football through Futsal. He started playing futsal when he was 4 years of age and wassoon moved into football. But in 2000 when Pato was just 10 years old, it was discovered that he had a tumour in his arm which could become cancerous if not removed inside two months. His family couldn’t afford the money for the surgey but the doctor, a family friend, did the operation for free.

Pato began his playing career at Internacional in Porto Alegre and made his professional debut in 2006. He scored 6 goals in 10 apperances for the senior team when a plethora of big clubs came hunting for his signature.

Alexandre Pato was signed by Milan in August 2007 for a whooping 22 million euros but die to Italian football regulations regarding non-EU minors, Pato was unable to play official matches for Milan until January 2008. He scored on his debut for Milan against Napoli in the Italian Serie A on January 2008. He scored a total of 9 goals in 18 matches in all competitions for Milan.

Since then Pato has developed to be one of the better and more important players for Milan and won the Serie A title in 2010-11.

Pato won the 2007 South American Youth Championship with Brazil and made his debut for the senior side against Sweden at the Emirates Stadium in March, 2008; he scored in that match.

Pato scored Internacional’s second goal of the 2006 FIFA Club World Cup on December 13 in the semi-final game against Al-Ahly Cairo, helping the team win 2–1 and a spot in the final, becoming the youngest scorer in the history of official FIFA competitions at 17 years and 102 days, thereby breaking Pele’s record.