It is quite the stretch to claim a lad born on the tiny Paqueta Island in Rio de Janeiro’s Guanabara Bay as one of east London’s own.
But as this ultimately historic season has worn on, that is the level of affection with which West Ham supporters have come to view the eponymous son of a land mass not even half-a-square-mile in size, an auto-free zone where the only modes of transport are pedal bikes and horse-drawn carriages.
