This morning I have woken upto the news that an 'Arsenal scout' approached Rafael and Fabio da Silva when they were 15 years old. He apparently asked the defenders to fly out to London to have a trial with Arsenal behind their clubs (Fluminense) back.

At that point Fluminense had already agreed with Man United to let the boys come to Old Trafford. There is no word whether it was an official Arsenal scout or not.
There aren't any suggestions (apart from rival fans) that it was an Arsenal scout. I wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't, this thing will happen and it is a shame because the clubs who look after these players and nurture them should receive transfer money, in this case they did.

Rafael said: “We were not too happy with the way he [the so called scout] approached us.

"The scout said he was from Arsenal and invited us to come and train.

"At that time we had already been to see Manchester United and train once with our club’s permission.

“But this man wanted to take us to England and say nothing to Fluminense [which is totally out of order].

“We disagreed with that principle [good!]. Fluminense was where we started, we had been there for years and they looked after us.”

“It was upsetting. We could have signed there and then and taken all the money and Fluminense would have got nothing.

“But our mother said ‘No, Fluminense have been good to you. You went there when you were 11. I want you to do everything right’.

“So we said we would sign for Manchester as it would be the best thing for us and Fluminense. So we signed and ignored the man pushing Arsenal.”

It sounds like we have a lot to thank their mum for. These two defenders have the talent to become world class players and under Sir Alex, I'm sure they will be.