/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/54752309/675114560.0.jpg)
It’s no secret that we’re big fans (YUGE!) of David Luiz ‘round these parts, even of this “more mature” version who has come back to us after two years in Paris.
“What I know is I am a better player, a better person, a better brother, a better boyfriend, for sure. I know more things, I have more experience. If my friend came to me crying I know what to say to him, or whether to say nothing at all and just hug him.”
“It's like football, I know things a bit more now. I think in a different way. I love our system. It has helped so many players. But, don't forget, we had also lost games.”
In this massive, lovely, excellent interview with the Daily Mail’s Martin Samuel — you should make sure to read the whole thing — David Luiz talks through all manner of topics, from his early career in Brazil, to the lessons he’s learned from his parents, to how joyfulness and personal connections remain the most important things in his life. He has no time for people who “pollute” his life, on or off the pitch.
“I think everybody is born pure. You never go to the maternity ward and hold a baby that has bad energy. It's impossible. But after comes the pollution of the world, and that makes people change. The situations, the moments in their life, people do bad things not because they are bad but because they don't have the right support at the right moment.”
“If you let the pollution take you, then you start to complain for nothing, for anything. You have to push away the pollution, the negative minds, the negative lies. If you gathered 100 people and asked if they had a problem, you would get told about 100 problems. But if you took one person and showed him all the other people's problems, he would think, "I haven't got a problem". This is the world.”
“They teach us to be negative, to complain about nothing. I'm not like this every day. But when I am I think, "Hey, wake up". I start to clean myself, get rid of the pollution. Try to do the right thing. Do I make mistakes? Yes. I go to hospitals, I see people in the beds, I think, "They are better than me". I am feeling pain for nothing. Why?”
“But joy is important in life, not just football. Joy is being serious and professional, too. Joy can be reaching your potential by training hard and being disciplined. Joy can be following the rules you need to follow.”
-David Luiz; source: Mail
David talks about the rules he has to follow on the pitch at Chelsea these days, about playing for the team and curbing his own moments of frustration and madness, while still leaving room for the unexpected like his free kick goal against Liverpool.
His displays, just as the team’s, have garnered plenty of praise and earned Conte plenty of respect. In a recent interview with the Chelsea official website, David Luiz talked a bit about his relationship with the head coach.
"I started to play as a defender in this system when I was young. I didn’t play it for a long time and now I’ve come back to a back three. In this system we work a lot in a tactical way and [Conte] gives me a lot of advice about how to read the game because in my position you need to be the cover for everybody, for the defence, the midfielders and the wingers, it’s a tactical position."
"I love working with him. He works on the details and he’s helped me a lot so it’s very good to work with him.”
-David Luiz; Source: Chelsea FC
There were plenty of confused looks and stifled laughs when Chelsea brought David Luiz back in the final days of the summer transfer window. But Conte promised to make him one of the best in the world, and he’s done just yet.
David Luiz, World’s Greatest Human ... and now one of its best defenders as well!