EXCLUSIVE ON STUNNING RISE OF UNITED'S 'NEW RONALDO'
HE GREW up playing football in the dusty streets of a slum known as The Ghetto.
As a scrawny youngster, Nani's friends laughed when he told them he would one day play for Manchester United.
But this month the Portuguese wonderkid shook hands with Sir Alex Ferguson after agreeing a £17million move to Old Trafford - completing an astonishing rags-to-riches story.
Next season the 20-year-old winger will line up alongside superstars Cristiano Ronaldo and Wayne Rooney at Old Trafford.
The glitzy lifestyle he is now guaranteed - not to mention his £30,000-a-week salary - could not be further removed from his povertystricken childhood.
Abandoned by his parents, Nani - real name Luis Carlos Almeida da Cunha - was raised by a loving aunt in a crumbling one-bedroom home in a crime-ridden district of Lisbon.
Proud Antonia Almeida, 47, told Sunday Mirror Sport: "Nani grew up surrounded by hardship and suffering, but the fight for survival has made him the young man and player he is today."
Nani was born in the impoverished Amadora neighbourhood of the Portuguese capital, the youngest of nine children.
His parents Maria and Domingos had emigrated from Cape Verde, a group of islands in the Atlantic Ocean off the west coast of Africa.
Nani was just five when his father left for a holiday in Cape Verde and never returned. But two years later a chance meeting at a football club changed the youngster's life forever.
Antonia said: "Nani's father left and a few years later his mother moved to Holland, and so I raised him as if he were one of my own children.
"For as long as I remember, he was always playing football.
"He would play for six or seven hours a day, anywhere and with anyone, pretending he was his hero Luis Figo. He even slept with his football in his bed. When he was eight he went to watch his older brother play at the local team, Real Sport Clube Massama, and couldn't resist kicking the ball himself.
"He dribbled the ball around some of the older lads. One of the coaches spotted his talent straight away and asked him to come back. Within a year he was signed up. And since then his life has been all about football.
"He told his friends if he worked hard enough he would play for Manchester United and they laughed at him.
"But he has proved everyone wrong by his hard work and determination.
"While others were getting involved in crime or drugs, Nani was training. He had to walk three miles a day to training and back again because we couldn't afford the money for the train.
"If he was late he had to take the train and dodge the fare. The police brought him home once and ticked him off for fare-dodging. But nothing would stop him playing football."
Antonia raised Nani in a cramped home built from breeze-blocks on the edge of the Santa Filomena estate in Amadora.
The one-storey house is surrounded by rubble, old mattresses and rusted corrugated iron. Outsiders refuse to enter the area they call The Ghetto. One of Europe's most deprived neighbourhoods, it is populated mostly by immigrants from Cape Verde and Angola.
Today Antonia has moved out of the area after the footballing sensation helped buy her a three-bedroom flat nearby in the city.
And the run-down home where Nani grew up is set to be demolished.
Nani's mother, Maria do Ceu Almeida, left Portugal to start a new life in Holland when her son was 12.
Antonia said: "The family background is complicated. But last year I took Nani to Cape Verde to meet his father for the first time since he walked out.
"It was a very emotional meeting. They are now back in contact with each other. And his mother Maria has moved back to Portugal and they're getting on well too." Nani played for Massama for eight years before being signed up by Sporting Lisbon aged 16.
There he joined up with Cristiano Ronaldo - who shared a similar background, brought up in poverty on the Portuguese island of Madeira.
Now he is being tipped to match Ronaldo's impact on the Premier League by Manuel Fernandes, who spent last season on loan from Benfica at Portsmouth and Everton and plays with Nani for Portugal's Under-21 side.
Fernandes said: "Nani is young but I know he can become a big star. He has so many qualities to his game.
"He have the same big impact as Cristiano. He has signed for the perfect club because they will develop him as a player and he will have Ronaldo and Carlos Queiroz to help him.
"Maybe people will ask whether Nani will be able to cope with the physical nature of the game in England. All I can say is that it wasn't a problem for me and I think it will be the same for him." Nani's first coach at Massama, Luis Neves, said: "When he first arrived Nani was a scrawny little kid, but he had an incredible talent and ability. He is shy and timid off the pitch, but as soon as he's on the pitch he comes alive. For Nani, every match is like a party.
"He came and trained with us for five hours a day, every day, since the age of eight. Now that dedication is paying off."
Nani passed through the Sporting Lisbon academy with Ronaldo before making his first-team debut aged 18 in 2005.
He scored on his debut for Portugal against Denmark in September last year - celebrating in spectacular style with his trademark back-flip and somersault.
His agility comes from years of practising the Brazilian martial art of Capoeira - his second passion.
Nani said: "I was born to play football and I have nothing to fear whatsoever. My strength will help me and I believe I will succeed.
"Manchester United are the biggest club in the world. I always dreamed of this and now my time has come."
FULL NAME: Luis Carlos Almeida da Cunha
BORN: November 17 1986
HEIGHT: 5ft 9in
2005
Debut for Sporting Lisbon. Made 61 appearances, scoring 10 goals.
2006
Made his Portugal debut and scored in a friendly against Denmark. Has won six caps and scored two goals.
2007
Joined Manchester United for £17million.
