Anderson

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Cytat:The Manchester United midfielder Anderson has a story about the beginnings of his professional career that tells you everything you need to know about why this talented Brazil international believes that he will be a success in England.

It begins in the canteen that served the youth-team players at his first club Gremio in his hometown of Porto Alegre in southern Brazil. Anderson was approached by the first-team manager who demanded to know why he had two mobile phones on that table in front of him. "I said 'Why do you want to know? I'm the one who pays the bills'," Anderson recalls. "He was surprised with my reaction because I was very young. He asked me if I played as much as I spoke. I said: 'I'm better than some of the players you have in your team'."

The Gremio manager was intrigued and rang the former Brazil international Branco, then in charge of the junior national teams, for a reference. "Apparently Branco said about me, 'He's a very good player but he's a bit crazy'," Anderson says. "We had a derby coming up against Internacional. It's like United v City. The Gremio manager told me to go to the hotel and join the first team. I had never even trained with them. I played and scored a goal. We lost 2-1. I was 15 years old."

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