On the 50-minute boat trip from Rio de Janeiro to Paqueta Island, across calm blue waters with the sun beating down, two teenagers are having a conversation in the row ahead.
It is Wednesday and they have just played a game in Rio and one of the lads played well, scored a goal and he is reliving the moment he left his opponents for dead. ‘I love the competition,’ he says, ‘And I hope to become a professional someday.’
The West Ham star Lucas Tolentino Coelho de Lima, known as Lucas Paqueta because, as is common in Brazil, he has taken the name of the place he grew up, probably thought the same when he took this same gentle journey every day.