Andrea Bocelli Remembers Soccer Accident That Left Him Blind

Andrea Bocelli is opening up about a turning point in his vision impairment.

In Andrea Bocelli: Because I Believe, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival on Saturday, Sept. 7, the Italian tenor revealed that a soccer accident as a young boy left him blind after he was living with glaucoma.

“As a child, I was considered extremely short-sighted. I could see everything but only from up close,” Andrea, 65, says in the documentary. “I remember extremely well the world I saw. Colors, everything. How could I forget those memories?”

Then, Andrea’s brother Alberto appears on the screen and speaks on the star’s journey.

“My brother Andrea, aged 3½, due to congenital glaucoma, had been operated on 13 times in Turin,” he explains. “It was torture.”

By age 7, Andrea was sent to a boarding school for “the visually impaired” since “no local school would take him,” Alberto says.

“He would come home only in the holidays. We’d go visit him once a month,” he says. Elsewhere in the documentary, Andrea says this was “the worst moment” in his life.

At age 12, the singer had an incident in boarding school that left him permanently blind.

“One day, playing [soccer], I was the goalkeeper. No idea why, as I had never been the goalie before,” he recalls. “And I never would be goalie again. A ball hit me right in the face. From that blow, a hemorrhage.. and the rest is history.”

Alberto adds, “That’s when he lost. That’s when darkness fell.”

In an old interview with his mother, she explained that she never accepted the narrative of the “poor boy” after the accident — and he didn’t either.

“Above all, Andrea never accepted any form of pity. He’d say, ‘What’s the point of pity?'” We’ve raised him on these principles. With courage. With a lot of courage,” she said.

Andrea adds, “My mother feared I wouldn’t be able to fend for myself. She worked really hard to provide me with tranquility and stability.”

Directed by Cosima Spender (Palio), Andrea Bocelli: Because I Believe “tracks Bocelli’s path to success and ongoing dedication to his craft through interviews and archival performance footage, as well as informal gatherings, such as a diverting party where Bocelli’s friends and family reminisce over food and wine,” according to the film’s description.

Adding, “When Bocelli sings, it is as though heaven has opened its gates, but watching Because I Believe reminds us that this remarkable artist is very much rooted in the earth.”