From The Sidelines: Soccer welcomes anyone...anytime

Luis Alberto da Silva is by my side. It is 7 pm on the Monday, and in around an hour and a half, Brasil will start its second game, this time against the Czech Republic.

Luis is Brazilian. And a professional in football matters. He's been around for quite a long time.

Luis is a goalkeeper's coach. It is a speciality that exists all over the world today, thanks to the Brazilians. At the end of the 60's, Brazilian coaches saw that while they were practicing with defenders, midfielders and strikers, the goalkeepers had very little to do.

Individualising the practice and creating a specific system of training that would allow goalkeepers to become more professionally developed, Luis is one of the few fully specialised goalkeeper's coaches in the world. He has a diploma from the first school in the world to teach professionals in this area.

And today there isn't a single club in the world, that would call itself serious, which does not have a goalkeeper's coach.

So now that we learned something new in football, we come back to Luis and me, sitting in the stands at the Rashid Stadium.

Luis has been here for around eight months. This is his second stint. In 2001 he worked in Al Nasr, and now he coaches the goalkeeper's at Al Wasl. He brings all the experience of having worked with the senior UAE National Team, at the Asia Cup in 1996 (reaching the finals and losing the title on penalty kicks!), and the results are great.

But why we are talking about Luis? Is he sick and tired of having people running after him to get tickets to the World Cup games? Or it it because he runs between practice sessions at Al Wasl, to catch a glimpse of the games in this competition?

No, to the first and no to the second.

Luis is simply going through a period of excitement like never before in his life. "Just by being Brazilian, my life is happier here! I am not Rivaldo, and I am not Ronaldo. I do not even work with the National team of Brazil. But people take care of me in a special way, gates are opened, people are so nice. I was even invited to visit and enjoy the luxury of the Burj Al Arab free of charge!"

And now, sitting in the Rashid Stadium, with 20 minutes for the game to start, enjoying an ice cream, Luis, who coached the goalkeepers of the Brazil national team in 1985, was surprised like never before.

"Slowly, slowly they arrive here...but they do they come from ?"

He was talking about the 1,000 crazy Brazilian fans, that took control of the stadium.
And from 1,000, they became 2,000. Chanting, shouting and screaming the names of the players and of the country.

It shook Luis so much, that he asked himself: "Where were these people? I have never seen them before? Are they all in the Emirates?"

Slowly, what we could see after getting a bit closer, was that the people making the Rashid stadium more colourful, were not just Brazilians. There were hundreds and thousands of locals from all origins, who simply joined the Brazilian fans for what can happen only in a World Cup: people coming together, happy just to see football.

Simple, no? What more can we ask out of football, the game that welcomes anyone... anytime.