Rhain DavisRhain Davis, 9, playing in Brisbane, Australia, last month (AFP/Getty Images)

Manchester United has signed Rhain Davis, a 9-year-old from Australia, to its youth academy based largely on the skills he displayed in this video sent to the club by Rhain’s grandfather. (It could be the second-biggest signing for ManU this month.)

Now, thanks to the the almost five minutes of video of Rhain weaving through a team of other youth players, he’s living with his father near the team’s training grounds and will be joined soon by his mother and brothers. Rhain has a British passport, which could eventually speed his path to Manchester United’s first team if the overwhelming hype doesn’t suffocate his development. How likely is that?

United takes on about 30 boys Rhain’s age. “But of the current United first-team squad, only one English player came from the academy,” the United spokesman Phil Townsend, referring to Danny Simpson, told the BBC.

The Beeb reminds fans not to get too excited too quickly. Not all players touted as the the next Gazza or the next Pele or the next Georgie Best pan out. Sonny Pike signed with the fabled Ajax youth system as a seven-year old. He reportedly suffered a nervous breakdown in 2000 and was out of the game a few years later. The Guardian reported in 2006 that he was studying psychology at Dundee University.

Commentors on an unofficial Manchester United chat site wonder if Rhain will be “burnt out by the time he’s 15.” Another suspects he may be a “Brazilian dwarf.”

Wayne RooneyWayne Rooney, now with Manchester United, scored his first Premier League goal for Everton at age 16. (ToshifumiI Kitamura/AFP/Getty Images)

The Sun newspaper, which called Rhain “Braziliant,” said he made the move from Brisbane’s Redlands United under-10 team and would begin training with United.

A Brazilian boy named Jean-Carlos Chera, now 11, garnered similar attention when a highlight reel of his soccer skills appeared on the Web three years ago. His highlights, set to reverential music, are also available on YouTube, which may be the best new recruiting tool available to scouts seeking new talent.

Where is Chera now? He is playing in the youth team for the Brazilian club Associacao Desportiva Atletica in the southern state of Parana. But he has European suitors, including Manchester United.