Introduction to new players | Mattus Cunia: From the children on the streets of Brazil to the "Wolf King" of Dream Theater

Perhaps the fate of Mattus Cunha and Manchester United has been written since the moment of birth. While Old Trafford's sod was still stained with the champagne foam from the 1999 Champions League final, Sir Ferguson and his players were singing "Glory of Manchester United" in Munich's beer halls, thousands of miles away, a baby boy was born with the first ray of sunshine of dawn. This child, who was born only a few hours later than Manchester United's "Triple Crown" celebration, will enter the Dream Theater for £62.5 million in 26 years, and his football story has long laid the foreshadowing of fate in the futsal stadium on the streets of Brazil and the training base of Coritiba.

When the nine-year-old Cunia played football in Placa San Gonzalo Square, it became a "little trouble" in the local futsal football circle. When Resiv CT Barrao's coach Barro Shaville first met him, the boy who always liked to roll his socks on his knees was running through the crotch with his left and right feet. "When he dribbled the ball, he looked like a radar, and he could see the running position of three teammates at the same time," Shaville still remembers, "Once a game against his Capobranco, we had to formulate a tactic of 'sacrificing one person' - deliberately letting go of the opponent's left winger and sending two players to guard him. That's it He often knocked the ball over with his heel, which made the other coach slapped the railing directly. "

This boy, called "Little Neymar" by the neighbor, seemed to have a magnet under his feet. Even after training, he had to pull his father, Carmelo, who was a math teacher, to practice under the street lamp. When his sneakers were ground into a big hole, he wrapped them tightly with colored tape and continued to kick. He was reluctant to leave his home until his mother shouted in the kitchen, "Mattheus, the bean soup is cold."

At the age of fourteen, a one-way ticket took Cunya away from his hometown where he had lived for a full fourteen years. When he walked into the Coritiba training base with a canvas bag stuffed with old jerseys, he was as thin as a bean sprout, and the canned dried tofu made by his mother was secretly hiding on the iron frame bed in the dormitory.

"The first night I heard him sniffle in the quilt," said teammate Pablo Thomas with a smile, "but the next day he trained, he used a dribbling from the midfield line and three shots to shock everyone. We lived in a dormitory and often quarreled over the air conditioning temperature. Once he hid my pillow and I deflated his football - but as soon as he came on the court, he could always send the ball to my running route like he had installed a GPS. Once we had just finished a fight, he made a one-on-one kick with his heel at the front of the penalty area. After the goal, he squeezed his eyes at me and shouted 'Thank you big brother'. I was so angry that I wanted to beat him up but couldn't help laughing."

The days in Coritiba were like a rough whetstone, which not only polished the skills but forged the mind. Once he should have gone to Italy with the team to participate in the Youth Championship, but he was notified to be selected the day before departure. His father Carmelo was so angry that he took a ten-hour bus from João Pessoa to pick him up home. "I shouted at him on the phone, 'Matus, we won't serve,'" Shaville recalled, "but the kid told his dad, 'Give me another week'. That week, he didn't train with the same team, but helped the equipment administrator to wipe shoes and water the field workers. He practiced more with the U19 echelon at night.

One shot training, he shot ten consecutively and all the dead ends. The coach made the decision to change his forward--he had always been the midfielder at the No. 10 position before." In this way, the originally thin midfielder suddenly completed his transformation to the front line when he was 16 years old. Teammate Tallison pointed to the tall and thin boy in the old photo and said, "He felt like he was being cast on magic after returning from Paraiba's vacation. He used to rely on fake moves to change directions, but now he can carry the defender and forcefully break through. We all laughed at whether he had secretly drank Amazon's 'Polar Water', but he said he was practicing beach football on the beach in his hometown."

At the night of the 2017 Dallas Cup, 18-year-old Cunya ushered in a turning point in his fate. Facing Manchester United's U19 echelon, he received a long pass from his teammate at the top of the penalty area. He did not stop the ball and directly sent the ball into the dead corner with a stretched barb. Manchester United scout in the stands pierced three holes on the spot. "The ball's time and shooting angle are too similar to Cantona," said Coritiba's coach Sando Forner at the time. "What's even more rare is that he did not celebrate after landing, but looked back at his teammate's running position. This was not like the instinctive reaction of a young player." Now when he walked into the physical examination room at Old Trafford, the new tattoo on his left arm is clearly visible: on the left is the relief of the scoreboard for the Champions League final on May 26, 1999, and on the right is the replica of his birth certificate. The words "May 27, 1999" in the date column form a wonderful response to Manchester United's glorious celebration. The gears of fate perfectly bite at this moment. The boy who once patched football with tape on the streets of Brazil was finally about to wear the Red Devils No. 7 sneakers printed with "CUNHA" - and the North Stand of Dream Theater is waiting to play a new legendary prelude to this Brazilian striker who is "the same age as Manchester United".

From the dirt court in the Torre community to the turf of the Allianz stadium, from the street juggling of futsals to the deadly blow of the Champions League final, Cunya's every step was like being pulled by an invisible red line, finally reaching the red palace closely connected to the moment he was born.