Fred strides in and his smile brightens up an already illuminated function room at the Athenee Hotel. He shakes hands and greets us in English on what is his third pre-season tour as he approaches a fifth season with Manchester United.
Although Fred has conducted interviews before in English, he will reply in Portuguese but there is no translator. Fred could be as excoriating as Roy Keane when he played the pundit for MUTV and we would be none the wiser.
United are providing the translation, which some of us joke could be heavily redacted. Fred has conducted punchy interviews in his native tongue with compatriots where he lamented the "vanity" in the squad and questioned the logic of hiring an interim manager. "As we say in Brazil, I carry the piano for the artists to play," he said in February.
