“If I gave him one thing, it is to fight for what you want all the time,” his mother Flavia Junqueira explained to BBC Sport.<\/p>\n
Looking at Joao Pedro’s story, that is exactly what he has had to do.<\/p>\n
His mother, along with his grandmother, have largely brought him up.<\/p>\n
Reports from Joao Pedro’s early childhood show his father, former Botafogo footballer Jose Joao de Jesus – more commonly known as Chicao – spent around eight years in prison after being charged as an accessory to murder and was rarely around.<\/p>\n
Junqueira later separated from him and focused on her son’s footballing potential.<\/p>\n
“Joao had a dream,” she said. “I shared that dream with my son. The dream didn’t have a price.”<\/p>\n
Growing up in Ribeirao Preto, a nine-hour drive inland from Rio de Janeiro, Joao Pedro was eventually scouted by one of the city’s clubs Fluminense, along with a host of other leading Brazilian clubs.<\/p>\n
Fluminense were regarded as the best option for the youngster’s development, who, like his father, began as a defensive midfielder before progressing further forward.<\/p>\n
That choice was, however, fraught with difficulty. <\/p>\n
Junqueira left her job, friends and family for Rio, and Joao Pedro “cried a lot” during the journey and in the weeks that followed because of homesickness.<\/p>\n
Even in the academy, he was told he “wasn’t strong enough” and would not make it. Again, it made him cry.<\/p>\n
But his mother, despite her increasingly limited means after leaving her job, hired a personal trainer for her son.<\/p>\n
At first, he ate well and trained well only because she told him to. Eventually, however, the penny dropped.<\/p>\n
“He was very skinny and there was a significant physical disparity between him and the other athletes in his age group,” his long-time personal trainer Rodrigo Goncalves told BBC Sport.<\/p>\n
“He never stopped training. Sometimes he went a bit reluctantly, pushed by his mother, but he went.<\/p>\n
“Over the years, however, that changed. He began to mature and understand that training wasn’t just something his mother required, but rather a tool to improve his performance, develop his body and build the physical balance needed for football.”<\/p>\n