Wendell Lira: From Puskas goals in real life to FIFA life

The life of the average professional footballer, contrary to popular perception, isn't some walk in the park. The average Brazilian professional earns $250 a month, barely enough for him to get by himself. With cut-throat competition and the risk of injuries always looming, the window for a player to make the grade as a professional closes very fast.

If you haven't been snapped up by a good club at the age of 19, chances are that you'll spend the rest of your career playing in the lower leagues and having to work a second job for a steady livelihood, as the Brazilian football calendar runs only for 6 months of the year, and clubs have no obligation to provide a 12-month contract.

In such circumstances, a Brazilian footballer on the last legs of his career received his 15 minutes of fame in a fashion only football can bring about. Wendell Lira, playing for his 7th professional club as a striker, struck a goal that reverberated around the football world, and culminated in him receiving the Puskas award for the aforementioned goal.

But the real life-changing event at the awards function wasn't him stepping on stage and letting his emotions flow. It was when he took on a challenge from World FIFA Champion Abdulaziz Alsheria and humiliated him 6-1 (playing with Real Madrid against Barcelona) on a game of FIFA 16 that he realized he was good at more than just playing football on the pitch.

Return to the life of a pro saw him sustain another knee injury, which took him out of the game for good this time around. The world would have forgotten him and moved on, except for the fact that he channelled his passion for FIFA play into becoming a professional gamer.

Lira started his own YouTube gaming channel in 2016, and has seen a steady rise in his profile as a gamer. In the nearly 3 intervening years, Lira has been the champion of his native region Goias and has led the continental leaderboard at numerous junctures.

His subscriber count stands at 552,146 at the time of writing, a significantly high count considering he only does videos in his native language of Portuguese. Since its inauguration, the channel has 437 videos at the time of publishing. The videos mostly have to do with tips and tricks in FIFA games - both the classic game as well as FUT - the release that usually pits the best online gamers against each other on a ratings basis.

A turnaround of this sort isn't possible for most players, but Lira is making full use of the opportunities he's gotten as a result of this beauty:

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