Tiago Manuel Dias Correia, known simply as Bébé since childhood.
The most intriguing move so far in this summer's soccer transfer period has not been any of the household names stockpiled by Manchester City, Chelsea, Barcelona or Real Madrid.
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Rather, it is the gamble that Manchester United has made in paying more than $11.5 million for a street player who has not yet played a game in Portugal's top league.
The first-division club Vitória Guimarães had signed Tiago Manuel Dias Correia for nothing five weeks earlier. But Manchester United paid the buyout clause in his contract last week when it became known that other big clubs, Real Madrid among them, were sniffing around the striker known simply as Bébé.
The nickname has stuck since childhood, when an older brother called him "baby." Born to immigrants from Cape Verde, picked up off the streets where they lived a rough life, they were taken as youngsters into a charitable institution, a refuge and orphanage in Loures, north of Lisbon.
By then, the streetwise skills, the improvisation that was so scarce at the World Cup this summer, were bred into Bébé.
"He's raw material, but we can work with that," Manchester United Manager Alex Ferguson said. "It's a fairy tale when you read about his background.
"When we identify someone with potential, we normally assess that over a period of time. But we have a good scout in Portugal, and he's very bright. He's got a tremendous instinct about the boy and other clubs were starting to hover on the boy, so we made a quick decision."
"Sometimes you have to work on an impulse, and we're good at developing young players," Ferguson said.
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SOURCE: The New York Times
