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When you think of professional footballers, especially at the level we see in Europe's best teams, you don't tend to think of childhood friends being reunited. These are the world's best players, and the chances of them being plucked from the same childhood social network and reunited at an elite side is, despite the fact that many youngsters will know each other from local teams, extraordinarily low. Sure, you get to an age group at which the state/city/country's top talent is funnelled together... but that doesn't happen when the kids involved are seven and eight.
Which is, as it turns out, is when David Luiz and Willian met.
Willian is my friend from childhood, from the age of eight, and it's a great gift from God to be able to play together now.
-David Luiz. Source: ChelseaFC.com.
Seriously, that's incredible. I don't know exactly where either grew up -- my internet stalking skills aren't that well developed -- but they were born about 18 miles apart, and it's not inconceivable that they actually lived even closer. Next time anyone interviews David Luiz I hope that they ask him how the two met. It was probably through football, of course, but for now I'll imagine that they befriended one another playing marbles or on the Big Scary Slide or whatever it is kids make friends doing.
