Brazilian twins Fabio and Rafael arrive in England on Monday to begin their careers with Manchester United.
Brazilian starlets set for English move
Brazilian twins Fabio and Rafael arrive in England on Monday to begin their careers with Manchester United - but they cannot play for The Red Devils until the summer.
United spotted the talented Fluminese pair - both full-backs - playing in a youth tournament in Hong Kong two years ago.
After a trial in 2006, Sir Alex Ferguson wasted little time in landing the highly-rated duo.
Now after two years jetting to England for brief stints - the 17-year-olds have been given the green-light to complete their switch to United and they will arrive on Monday with their family.
"After eights visits to Manchester United, we will travel to live in England," said Rafael who is a right-back, whilst his brother Fabio is a left-back.
"In the last two years we went there about every three months, we stayed for 10 days and then returned to Fluminese.
"This time we will have the whole family, father, mother and my older brother's wife with him."
Impact
Rafael revealed that the duo cannot wait to move to Europe and they are buoyed by the recent impact of Alexandre Pato at Milan - who scored on his debut last weekend.
"We know there are Brazilians of our age doing well, Anderson, who is our friend, at Manchester United and we talk to [Liverpool's] Lucas who used to be at Gremio by MSN," he continued.
"But the greatest example for us is Alexandre Pato. Who knows; perhaps we can follow the same path as The Duck?"
Neither player has been able to feature for Fluminese's first-team as United have been keen for them to look after themselves.
"The club feared that we might get hurt," said Fabio.
"We would have preferred to play, but there was also the fear that the fans would have wanted us to stay.
"We have just continued to train - but it is a pity we have not had the chance to play in Rio as a professional."
Olympic dream
The duo will not officially be able to play for United until they turn 18 in July but Fabio - Brazilian Under 17 captain - has some hope that he could yet play in the Olympics.
"I will have only been in training for six months, without a game, at Manchester United and at the most I will have played a few friendlies," he said.
"This will probably remove me from the Brazilian team; although Dunga has praised me and Jorginho [Dunga's assistant] has already talked to me about the Olympics."
