“It was hell. I would be dead if the police hadn’t showed up.”
— Maria de Lourdes Silva de Oliveira, the 36-year-old sister of AC Milan star Ricardo Oliveira, after her rescue from a Sao Paulo apartment ended a five-month kidnap ordeal. Oliveira was at least the eighth professional soccer player to have a family member kidnapped and then freed in Sao Paulo state, Brazil’s biggest, since 2004.