Rise and fall of the Portugal starlet everyone thought was better than Ronaldo

There was once a Portugal starlet tipped to be better than Cristiano Ronaldo – until his career went down the pan.

Fabio Paim was considered to be Portugal's hottest prospect when he and Ronaldo came up together in Sporting Lisbon's academy. A scout at the club, Aurélio Pereira, even once raved: “Do you think Cristiano is good? Wait to see Fábio Paim,” a view that Ronaldo also voiced when signing for Manchester United in 2003.

He was so good that the French Football Federation reportedly tried to persuade him to move to France, and offered his parents a huge sum to do so. Paim had also caught the attention of Europe's biggest sides including Barcelona, Real Madrid, and Man United, who all sent scouts to watch him play.

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But in an example of hard work beats talent, Ronaldo became one of the world's best players while Paim slid into obscurity after a series of poor decisions that culminated in him drinking alcohol and standing trial for drug dealing.

However, before it all went wrong, Paim was deemed so talented that Sporting awarded him a £17,000-a-month contract when he was just 16, to fend off interest from abroad – although he later claimed the Portuguese side were paying him close to £150,000 off the books.

But ironically, the exorbitant figure marked the beginning of the end for Paim. The youngster who couldn't afford a pair of shoes when he started out now had the means to splash out on supercars and live a life of luxury.

He reflected to Globoesporte in 2017: “I spent a lot of money on cars. I love cars. I spent lavishly on the ones I wanted. All of them.

"Ferrari, Lamborghini, Porsche, Maserati and even a Punto. Every car you could imagine."

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His newfound passion for cars affected his form on the pitch, and he failed to break into Sporting's first team, resulting in his loan switch to Chelsea in 2008 facilitated by super agent Jorge Mendes, who still represents Ronaldo, in 2008. It was a move that was meant to rejuvenate Paim's career, but it had the complete opposite effect.

In the same year that Ronaldo picked up his first Champions League medal at United, Paim languished in Chelsea's reserve team under Brendan Rodgers. And he resorted to alcohol binges, paid for with the hefty wage packet Mendes had sorted out for him, instead of focusing on the game.

Paim previously explained: "Jorge put me on Chelsea. He had a player there, I was very well paid, it was there where I stopped training and doing my work.

“I started drinking. I had money, and I started doing a lot of things I didn’t do before. The doors were open for me to do what I felt like.”

After his failed stint at Chelsea, Paim appeared on reality TV, was frequently spotted in nightclubs, and had spells with 14 different teams, before retiring in 2018, the same year Ronaldo was named Portugal's Player of the Year. And to round off his fall from grace, Paim was busted by cops for possessing narcotics in 2019, but escaped prison as the wire-tapping used to arrest him was inadmissible in court.

His tumultuous career saw him go from Portugal's biggest prospect to football's scrap heap. Paim could only look on as former peer Ronaldo went on to conquer the game, making 196 appearances for their country thus far and scoring 118 goals, breaking a slew of international records along the way.

Paim on the other hand never earned a single cap for Portugal despite his early promise. He only managed to reach the U21 side, and won 42 caps before it all went sour.

However, Paim is acutely aware of where he went wrong, and detailed what qualities separated him and Ronaldo in the end. He said: "At one point, I could do more than him but I did not have what he had, which is the strength and desire to be what I wanted to be.

"He had a great work ethic and I didn’t have that. I had the quality, at least as much as him, but I did not have the rest."

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