‘Shrunk and nervous’, Dani Alves sees how his life falls apart in a 6 square meter cell

Ever since that first night in prison when he went to sleep without eating, he took a shower with cold water and didn’t make the only phone call allowed “because he couldn’t remember any number” to call. Daniele Alves da Silva For two months he has been locked up in a Catalan prison, the modern Brians 2 prison, 38 kilometers away Barcelona.

He wakes up and goes to bed in a cell six square meterswith their own shower, where they spend the hours of pre-trial detention, which will be many, until the trial is carried out, which still has no date.

The 39-year-old Brazilian player is one of the inmates of module 13, which brings together those who are committed crimes against sexual freedom.

Alves is accused of having had forced and non-consensual sex a 23 year old girl in the bathroom of a private room of the Sutton disco in Barcelona, ​​​​at dawn on December 31st last year.

In Brians 2, where he doesn’t watch TV – he expressly asked not to have a TV in his cell – and sometimes takes part in snacks in the sports center of the prison, Alves spent two months watching your life fall apart: A few hours after his arrest on January 20, the club he had been playing for since July last year, Pumas de la UNAM (National Autonomous University of Mexico), terminated his contract. And now he would be asking for compensation from five million dollars for violation of the ethics and good conduct clause.

Alves must neither want nor remember that in 2012 he reached his highest figure as a footballer: 36 million euros.

And while he signs autographs in prison and makes gestures of generosity with the inmates – sometimes he buys them something they want to eat – his image, which has sweetened him with 9.4 million followers on Twitter and 38.5 million on Instagram, falls.

Adidas did not renew the contract it had with him until the end of 2022. And the underwear (Ethika) and health (Hygia Saúde) companies that sponsored him stopped doing so.

These days Alves isn’t even in the mood to leave his cell to socialize with other inmates: recent autographed letter from his latest wife, the Spanish model Joana Sanzuploaded to his Instagram account, he “sunk” him, according to those close to the former Barça player.

“He’s completely sunken and very nervous”, he reassures his surroundings about the letter in which Joana tells through social networks that she is parting with him.

“It’s so hard for me to accept that I could fall apart,” wrote Joana about Alves. “Despite the damage she has caused me, I am still here by her side. I continue and will continue to be, but in another way ”, she confessed.

And as happened a month ago, when the Court of Barcelona denied him the publication considering that there was still the risk that the player would escape -even Brazil does not extradite its citizens-, Dani Alves spends hours in silence in his cell, without speaking to anyone.

At that time, his fellow prisoners they made bets as in roulette on the fate of the Brazilian: if the request for provisional release from his defense would be an answered prayer or if the footballer would remain behind bars until the trial, which has no date but would take place this year. Alves was not amused by the “joke” of the inmates of Brians 2.

A month after his entry into prison, the investigation into the case was almost over.

Statements had already been collected from the young woman who had denounced him, from Alves himself, from a friend of his, and from the disco staff.

And even the DNA tests, which usually take time, would have already given their verdict: fingerprints and sperm that could be obtained from the girl’s clothes and from the bathroom floor of the disco would incriminate.

no bail

On 20 January, Dani Alves was in Spain with special permission from his Mexican club to attend his mother-in-law’s funeral in Tenerife. The Central Unit for Sexual Crimes of the Mossos de Esquadra – the Catalan police, who had been following in the player’s footsteps for weeks – summoned him to testify. Alves introduced himself and provided various versions of his encounter with the 23-year-old girl who, early in the morning of the last day of last year, as soon as she came out of the private bathroom of the disco, started crying, told her what had happened and was referred to the Hospital Clinic of Barcelona, where they confirmed the traces of the sexual assault she reported.

Since then Dani Alves has been in prison. In preventive detention communicated but without bail.

He spent the first three nights in the Brians I prison and then, for security reasons, he was transferred to Brians II, a prison that also housed a former president of FC Barcelona -Josep Lluís Núñez-, son of the former Catalan president Jordi Pujol and the former president of the Palau de la Música in Barcelona, ​​​​​​Félix Millet, who passed away this week.

During the first days of Dani Alves’ detention, another inmate accompanied him: Coutinhoalso Brazilian, which he was bodyguard of Ronaldinho and goalkeeper in some ballrooms of Barcelona.

Coutinho was by his side as the footballer adapted to the 13 which, like the rest of the penalty modules, It has a doctor’s office, a hairdresser, a gymnasium, sports fields, a swimming pool and a central library.

Every morning, at the counting of the prisoners, which takes place three times a day, Alves gives his present.

Have breakfast at 8:30 and dinner at 20:00. And, like the rest of the inmates, You can receive visits every 15 days and spend time with his family or those he considers close.

Once a week, however, he is allowed to hold meetings in the cabin, through armored glass, for a maximum duration of 50 minutes.

Until now, his ex-wife has visited him, Dinorah Santanamother of his children, aged 16 and 15, and who was for a time his representative. “Hands in fire? I’d give my whole body for him,” Santana said a few days ago of her ex’s innocence.

Joana Sanz also went through Brians 2, before applying for the divorce.

Dani Alves could be sentenced to a sentence that goes between 8 and 12 years’ imprisonment. Since she filed a complaint against him, the young woman who claims she was raped by him says she will not accept compensation. She just hopes that her attacker is convicted of the harm she did to him.

While in Brians 2 Dani Alves, one of the 26 called up by the former Brazilian coach Tite for the World Cup in Qatar last year, will miss the friendly match that Canarinha will play with Morocco in Tangier this Saturday 25. Perhaps he is encouraged and looks in the room penalty to follow the game of a team on television of which he will most likely never be a part of again.

It’s worth remembering, he was the last captain to lift a trophy with that shirt, in the 2019 Copa América. When nothing and no one could predict this sad outcome.

Barcelona, ​​​​​​Spain. Corresponding.