It’s unusual to start an interview by asking the subject to guess the first question, but in this case it is because we suspect he knows what is coming.

His name is Rivaldinho, he is 24 years old and he plays as a striker for FC Viitorul in Romania. Our opening question is whether it is frustrating that interviews always start with, and revolve around, his father, Rivaldo, who left the elite of European football over 15 years ago now. Smiling, Rivaldinho sits back, relaxed, hands clasped and begins.

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“I am proud of the history my father made so I don’t mind the questions — he was one of the biggest players in the history of football,” he proudly tells The Athletic. “He’s not so open, so it’s natural that people ask me about him as they are curious about what he is doing and what kind of things he says to me. I’m happy to speak about my father — he is a legend!”

But as we return to the subject of what it’s like growing up as the son of an iconic Brazilian football superstar after forays into language, fame and loss, it becomes clear the weight of expectation that comes with the name did take a toll during his formative years. Rivaldinho’s hands are now more expressive.

“When I was in Brazil at around 13 I was the top scorer in the league. People were saying, ‘Of course you are. Your father is Rivaldo, so he helps you.’ I called my dad and said, ‘I don’t want to play any more. I want to study and be with my friends.’ He said that I could do whatever I wanted but that I should remember he was on the other side of the world and I was playing alone.

“I didn’t like what people were saying but in the end I just said, ‘These are my feet I am scoring with, not those of my father.’ It clicked in my mind that this will always happen. Even if I finish top scorer here they will say that. They think it’s easy for us.”

The other half of the ‘us’ he refers to is now-Rangers midfielder Ianis Hagi, son of Romanian great Gheorghe Hagi (now Rivaldinho’s coach at Viitorul), who he played with for six months before the latter’s move to Genk in Belgium last summer. It is no surprise they counselled each other, given they belong to a very select group.

“We spoke about how difficult it is to have a father who is a legend. The people don’t understand and they expect you to be the same or better than your father but they don’t appreciate how difficult it was for them to reach that level in the first place. They have this impression of you and say ‘You’re not his son, you don’t have 10 per cent of the talent of your father.'”

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Rivaldinho has spent the last three years playing in Romania and Bulgaria after realising he had to leave Brazil to aid his development. Spells at Dinamo Bucharest and Levski Sofia helped establish himself in Europe, but many assume his father’s link with Hagi as former Barcelona stars was the reason he signed for Viitorul in January 2019.

“My father hadn’t spoken to him. I wouldn’t let him make my career for me,” he insists. “March was the first time he came to Constanta so then he met Mr Hagi, but I came here because Hagi knew me from playing against me [at Romanian rivals Dinamo from 2017-18]. They got in contact with my agent and as soon as I knew Mr Hagi wanted to collaborate with me I didn’t think twice. I knew what Viitorul was about so I knew I would grow as a footballer and a person.

“He is 24 hours on football and a very good coach. He loves football so that’s always the conversation. He has a big mentality so we don’t think like a small team. We don’t play like a Romanian team, we try to play like Barcelona. If you win today, tomorrow you need to do even better for him.

“In Brazil the coaches aren’t very tactical, but after Brazil lost 7-1 to Germany at the World Cup [in 2014] it started to change the mentality of the coaches and players. They know that talent alone won’t do anything, you need to train and use tactics. Brazil is developing more of a European mentality.”

Viitorul are struggling to replicate their form of previous years this season, currently sitting seventh in the table with just one win in the last six league games. Although Rivaldinho scored six times in his first 10 appearances, it is perhaps surprising to some that his game is based on his ability to lay the ball off and bring others into play given his father was known as a showman capable of producing elastic dribbles and exaggerated feints.

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“Everyone expects that,” he says. “They say, ‘Oh you’re Brazilian, you must dribble past 10 people and score.’ But it doesn’t matter where I’m from or who my father is, I just need to show what I can do and try to learn. Because I am Brazilian does not mean that I am the best player in the team or the country.”

Spending the early years of his life in Barcelona, where his father enjoyed great success over five seasons at the Nou Camp from 1997-2002 including winning the Ballon d’Or in 1999, and then the the next decade elsewhere in Europe, he enjoyed a comfortable life growing up. He went to a British school and his international outlook means he is fluent in Romanian, Portuguese, Spanish, English and Italian. He actually learned Romanian without taking any formal classes, instead picking up words in conversation and relating them to Portuguese and from watching TV.

It may be one trimming of a wealthy upbringing, but it was still polar opposite to his father’s childhood.

Rivaldo’s mesmeric ability was all the more endearing due to the struggles he had faced as a youngster. The malnourishment he endured while being raised in a favela caused the loss of his teeth and the bow-leggedness that would later differentiate him from other players.

“I will never forget the hunger I felt as a child,” he once said of his memories of life in coastal Recife, Brazil’s fourth largest city. It is clear what drove him to stardom, but what drove his son when he had nothing to escape from?

“Most of the people, like my father, had no option,” says Rivaldinho. “He could not finish school, so to change the life of his family and provide food was to work on his talent. He said it was the only thing he could do. It’s not my fault, but I could have chosen to study to become a doctor or whatever I wanted. But I chose to be a football player because I grew up in the locker room with my father. I loved the smell of the pitch and to listen to the sound of boots, so it was in my blood.

“I remember, I was behind the bench and I would sit with the players who weren’t in the squad. He let me go to the training when I wasn’t in school too. I always wanted to be like my father and to score in front of a full stadium, to go to the mall and take pictures with people. What I was seeing my father do, I wanted to do the same.”

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In July 2015, father and son were able to share the pitch for Mogi Mirim, a Brazilian second division club where Rivaldo was president, having come out of retirement at the age of 43 for a crucial game as they fought relegation. Predictably, he scored. So did his son.

“It is the most special day of my career so far,” Rivaldinho says. “Never has a Ballon d’Or winner scored a goal in the same game as his son, so it is a unique privilege. We are in the history of football and not a lot of father and sons can do the same. I will never forget that moment.”

Rivaldo’s childhood was laced with tragedy as he lost his father to a bus accident at the age of 15 and Rivaldinho’s life was similarly stricken when his mother died in 2014.

“It was very difficult. It was very bad for me. But that’s why I love football, because in that difficult time only football could make me smile again and make me leave home to go training. If it wasn’t for football, I don’t know where I would be today. My family supported me as I had to change my whole life. My father and I were already very close but I was living with my mother, so I moved in with my father.”

Rivaldinho’s two brothers and two sisters live in the United States with his father, and his two brothers, aged 13 and 14, hope to become footballers too. They have been offered to train with Orlando City, the MLS club where Kaka played before retiring in 2017. Rivaldo had a crucial role in bringing his countryman and fellow Ballon d’Or winner to AC Milan back in 2003.

“My father was one of the guys who told [Milan chief executive Adriano] Galliani to buy Kaka from Sao Paolo. My father was already there and [former Brazil international] Leonardo was the director there. My father told him he [Kaka] was an amazing player and that one day he would be the best in the world.”

That prophecy came true and, for some years spanning the turn of the millennium, Rivaldo was one of the best of his generation. But he is not as revered in Brazil as other World Cup winners or Ballon d’Or recipients, something his son believes is because he was not interested in the off-pitch opportunities the sport had to offer.

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“If he had explored the marketing when he was playing, like Ronaldo and Ronaldinho did, he would be at the same level. But people remember them more because they finished their career at the highest level later than my father. They also had people behind them that knew it was important to work on your marketing when you were famous so you could keep a legacy after 20 or 30 years.

“My father doesn’t have any regrets though, as the most important thing for us is health and family. One day you can be famous and then the next it can all be gone. Fame doesn’t mean anything. That’s one of my father’s lessons I keep in my head. It doesn’t matter how much money you haven or how famous you are, it’s about your family, giving 100 per cent at work and having a clear mind when you go to bed.

“I cannot say I don’t want to be famous and reach the level of the national team but I will not be mad or think, ‘Oh god, why did I not reach that level?’ if it doesn’t happen. This is not the most important thing in life. To be a good man in life is what counts.”

(Photo: Alex Nicodim/NurPhoto via Getty Images)