Soccer: Luiz is already a favourite

David Luiz has only been a Chelsea player for two months but the way in which people respond to him at the club's training ground means you would be forgiven for thinking that he has been there forever.

He spots the reserve-team player Jack Cork working on his fitness in the sand track and shouts, "Hey, you're on Copacabana."

The reception staff come out from behind their desk to shake hands and talk to him. Luiz's English is rudimentary but that does not stop him communicating.

At 23, and costing £21 million, he arrived in January from Benfica as very much the B-side to the marquee signing of Fernando Torres. Yet it is Luiz who has made the immediate impact. He was the Premier League Player of the Month for February and he has scored twice already.

Like the new kid at school who becomes one of the most popular in class overnight, he is a club favourite in the making - and he has only played six games in a blue shirt so far.

Luiz is not just the shaggy hairstyle and a boisterous attitude towards defending - although he admits with a smile that both those things are a major part of what he is about. He is a religious man, not embarrassed to pepper his conversation with references to God and his faith. Asked to name his hobbies, he says he reads the Bible.

But, like most young Brazilian guys his age, he also likes watching the Elite Squad action movies, about police operations against drug barons in the favelas. Luiz has come up the hard way. He grew up in Diadema, a town close to Sao Paulo and left home at the age of 14 when his local club Sao Paulo rejected him for being too small.

He went to Esporte Clube Vitoria in the city of Salvador - a 14-hour bus ride from his family home. He did not see his parents or his sister for two years. So when he talks about sacrifices, you know this is a man speaking from experience.

"I am very happy," he says. "Happy to be in the best league in the world and playing well. I think the dedication I show on the pitch has always meant that I have that connection with the fans. I work hard when I am out there and that means I get through to the fans I feel that connection with them.

"It is frustrating not being able to play in the Champions League (he is cup-tied) because every player loves to be involved but I feel involved during the week when I train with my colleagues. I try to motivate them and I give them support."

But there is also that sense of fun. Before the last two Champions League games at Stamford Bridge - Copenhagen in the previous round and Manchester United on Wednesday - Luiz could be found two hours before the match signing autographs just by the tunnel entrance. Kids in particular seem to love him, especially the hairstyle.

"My hair wasn't like that in Brazil," he says. "It was when I arrived in Portugal to play for Benfica [in January 2007] when it was cold that I just let it grow long. Gradually I realised that people liked it. I also realised that I had created a kind of image for myself. But it wasn't intentional, it happened naturally and now there are a lot of people who don't want me to cut it off."

It also fits with another part of the Luiz personality. He is a full-time footballer and a part-time surfer. He learned how to surf in the resort of Itacare, a mecca for the sport, on the Bahia coastline when he was at EC Vitoria. Apart from the occasional holiday he does not get much time to surf because he feels a responsibility not to risk injury but - as he puts it - "when you fall, the water doesn't hurt you".

He broke into the side at EC Vitoria as an 18-year-old and was at Benfica two years later, initially on loan. He went straight into the first team and immediately established himself.

Having gone from the third tier of Brazilian football with EC Vitoria, to the most famous side in Portugal and then on to Chelsea, he would appear to breeze through some of the biggest challenges.

Luiz talks a lot about opportunity. His parents gave him his. His father Ladislau was a promising player in the junior teams at Atletico Mineiro but had to quit because he needed to earn money to look after Luiz's grandmother.

"My father Ladislau, not a beautiful name, eh?" he says. "He said to me that he had to give up on his dream so that we could live as a family. He was a very good player, better than me.

"Brazil is a country that breathes football. Everyone has someone in their family who wants to be a footballer, or someone who never made it, or even a baby still in his mother's tummy who everyone wants to be a footballer. If he is born a boy then you know for sure that he will love football. If she is born a girl, then for sure she will like it too.

"That is the type of country that we are and we are very proud. We are poor but growing economically and trying to give opportunities to those who can't play football. Both my parents are teachers and they emphasised that education was really important and those are the most important values that you can have. Because football is a dream and sometimes it doesn't become a reality.

"My parents always taught me that there is a right way and a wrong way and that I have to make a choice between the two. I have always been happy with the decisions that I make. I also believe everything happens for a reason. I believe in God. When the offer came from Chelsea I felt it was right. I had lots of offers from a lot of clubs but I never felt the same way about them as I did about Chelsea."

It is a source of great pride to him that his older sister Isabel, 27, a physiotherapist living in Brazil, has been able to pursue her ambition of being a doctor because his wages mean that he can now pay her university fees.

His references to God and the Bible might sound unusual coming from a highly-paid Premier League footballer but they are without affectation. It is just his natural way of speaking and he makes a distinction between Brazil and Europe mainly in the attitude towards life.

"Because of the way life is in Brazil, not a lot of people can afford to have the best food or a house to live in," he says, "so their faith comes from the hope that tomorrow could be a better day."

It will be interesting to see how Luiz develops in English football. There is a charming innocence about him and a sheer enthusiasm for life that seems unquenchable. But this can be a cynical game at times and despite his barnstorming start in the Premier League he will surely, like all young players, go through highs and lows.

So what does he make of the view held by some that there are a few, if not all, Premier League footballers who are overpaid, boorish and generally out-of-control?

"Being a footballer is not just about how you do on the pitch," he says. "You have to look at other issues outside of the game. You have to conduct yourself as a professional. As a footballer, I have an opportunity to be heard by a lot of people.

"I do feel that if there is one thing that is important, it is your family. A lot of young people have stopped looking at their family in the way that they should."

Luiz admits he is not that well known in Brazil because he never played at the top level there. His five caps for the national team are changing that, as well as his profile at Chelsea.

- INDEPENDENT