Sudden death: Maria Jaci Ferreira Nunes with a photograph of her son Junior at her house in Brasilia, Brazil

In the bylanes of Sao Paulo, on the beaches of Rio de Janiero and deep into coffee plantation territory, kids grow up kicking balls made out of rags. Elsewhere, children are urged not to spend too much time playing; in Brazil, mothers pray their sons turn footballers. Cristiano Sebastiao de Lima Junior?s mother may have done the same.

But then, football is all about dreams. When Junior died following an on-field collision during the Federation Cup final last Sunday, it was also the death of a dream. For the Brazilian forward, who idolised Romario but had never tasted the same sort of adulation as the great striker, was in the middle of fulfilling a few dreams of his own.

Last December, Junior had arrived as an anonymous footballer in Calcutta. By the time the season was over, he was a darling of East Bengal club supporters. In a faraway land he hardly knew a year ago, Junior had become a star.

The 25-year-old Brazilian was recreating some more magic for Dempo FC, the Goan club he joined this season and had taken it to the pinnacle of its maiden Federation Cup triumph, when death intervened.

For Junior, the dream ended both suddenly and tragically. But in hundreds of playing fields across the globe, Brazilian footballers continue to chase their private dreams. In an age of globalisation, football is Brazil?s most lucrative export.

Be it top guns like Ronaldo in Spain?s Real Madrid club or small fry like Ruis Wanderley Weis in Vasco, Goa ? Brazilian footballers are peddling their wares for a price. Sao Paulo-based football correspondent Jamil Chade sums it up succinctly: ?These days the footballers playing abroad generate more revenue than the export of coffee and sugar that Brazil is known for.?

Figures back his claim. Brazilian professionals are registered in 77 countries. In 2004 alone, 852 footballers left to play abroad; estimatedly about 5,000 are making a living out of the game outside Brazil.

Junior was one of Ronaldo?s dozen-odd countrymen playing in India. When he arrived, East Bengal was going through a rough patch. In their previous three National Football League games, the club had lost one and drawn the remaining two.

But Junior changed the scenario. Firing home 15 goals in only 18 games and scoring for a record seven games in a row after his debut, he helped East Bengal romp home with ease. ?My job was at stake. He proved to be my saviour,? says coach Subhas Bhowmick.

Junior, who was deeply religious and often seen reading the Bible, came from a modest background. Having lost his father at an early age, he was brought up by his mother. Recently, he had bought a house for her. Just like many other footballers might have.

In Brazil, which has won the World Cup an unprecedented five times, football has always been the opium of the underprivileged. For often, the only other avenue for a young Brazilian is crime. Football is one of the few vehicles of honest, upward social mobility.

Football was Junior?s calling. He played for several local clubs, including Vasco da Gama. But he couldn?t be what he wanted to be in Brazil, where great talent was in abundance.

According to East Bengal?s Brazilian defender Douglas da Silva, almost 80 per cent of Brazilian men have kicked leather at some point of time. Sao Paulo alone has 4,000 professionally registered players.

But with the remarkable pool of talent around, only the finest become a superstar cherrypicked to play in a premier European club or even a star with a top Sao Paulo club. The flotsam and the jetsam wallow in the lower leagues with a salary that Mohun Bagan?s latest import Eduardo Coelho says is around $800-1,000 a month (compare that to the $3,000-5,000 a Brazilian recruit could command in India). ?Some professionals even have problems buying bus tickets going for practice,? says Chade, who works for the daily, Estado de Sao Paulo.

That apart, as Alex Bellos, author of Futebol: The Brazilian Way of Life, says, the game?s management is in a pretty sorry state in the South American country. ?Most teams are in debt. Stadiums are in bad shape,? he says. A BBC reports says that the number of spectators per game was below 7,500 this year. Only a few star players in the top clubs like Santos, Palmeiras or Flamengoe enjoy a handsome salary.

So, depending on their ability and ambition, many are willing to try their luck abroad. The lucrative European leagues are obviously the first choice; 65 Brazilians are in action in the ongoing Champions League this season.

The order of preference is in the following descending trail: the J-League in Japan and leagues in West Asia; the leagues in South-East Asia (Malaysia, Indonesia); East European countries like Bulgaria or Slovenia, India and finally, the African nations like Tunisia and Cameroon.

While researching for his book, Bellos met some Brazilian footballers even in the Faroe Islands, a dot somewhere in Europe. One of them, the writer recalls, was so bad, he was unable to get a game in his football club. ?He was working full-time in a fish factory,? says Bellos in a telephonic interview to The Telegraph.

The amusing story, though, is an aberration. In most clubs they play for, the Brazilians have established themselves as high-quality skilful professionals whose very presence enthuse the crowds. Even in Iceland, recalls Chade, some second-division players from the largest Latin American country had become major stars in the Nineties.

For Junior, the choice was India. While playing for the America Futebol Clube in Brazil, the youngster was approached by Douglas with an offer to play for East Bengal, the club that the latter had already joined. On December 13, 2003, Junior registered himself at the Indian Football Association office in Calcutta as a player with the red-and-gold brigade.

India had tasted the live samba magic rather late, although Pele, who played in Calcutta in 1977, Garrincha and Vava were always household names in the soccer-serious eastern metropolis.

But it wasn?t before Jose Ramirez Barreto, who seduced Mohun Bagan fans with first-hand Brazilian magic, that India experienced the carnival spirit.

After that, there was no going back for the Indian clubs. Barreto started a chain reaction acting as a point of reference for other Brazilians. Leonardo, Junior, Eduardo, Douglas, Weis, Rogerio Ramos (who shared a club with Brazilian 94 World Cup goalkeeper Claudio Taffarel), Roberto Mendes De Silva, Paolo de Silva ? the chain has grown longer every passing year.

Former Bagan coach Aloke Mukherjee explains why. Says the man who coached three Brazilian players: ?The Brazilians are talented, willing to work hard and learn and are perfect gentlemen.? Words that fitted Junior to a T.

In his first season, Junior was even more successful than Barreto though not every coach was impressed by the Brazilian, when he joined East Bengal. Bhowmick recalls a senior coach telling him, ?What do you see in this guy? He looks very ordinary.? The East Bengal coach?s reply was: ?He might be ordinary for 89 minutes and 30 seconds. But in the remaining 30 seconds, he will get you a goal.?

The goals increased his market value. Believed to have come for a mere Rs 15 lakh last season, his price shot up to Rs 22 lakh in this year?s Dempo deal. But he was not the highest paid. During his stint with Mohun Bagan, Barreto was reportedly paid about Rs 50 lakh a year. Attacking medio Marcos Pereira pocketed over Rs 2 lakh a month.

Money, clearly, is a major motivator for the professional Brazilian though the 30-plus Douglas says that he came only because he wanted to share ?his experience?. Eduardo, who loves paranthas and Jennifer Lopez, is more forthcoming. ?I am here because I want to make a lot of money. If I get a chance to play in another country, I will do so,? he says.

Former India captain P.K. Banerjee provides a peep into the players? psyche. He says that the Brazilians feel at home in Goa, a former Portuguese colony, because they can speak their own language there. ?In Calcutta, they feel the passion for the game as in Brazil. But in Goa, they also get their own cuisine. They can also visit the Portuguese church,? he says.

According to Bhowmick, it was this cultural affinity that drove Junior to Goa. Having played out his contract with East Bengal, Junior left for Brazil, only to come back and join Dempo FC, because the Goan way of life suited him better than Calcutta.

He was also a family man. Footballers are notorious for wild celebrations. But when Junior wanted to rejoice he told coach Subhas Bhowmick that he just wanted to visit the Alipore Zoo. ?I was both amused and surprised,? recalls Bhowmick. ?but Junior said that both he and his wife Juliana loved to watch animals. He was like a child.?

According to former teammate Bhaichung Bhutia, the Brazilian was both a good human being and a fine footballer. ?He was not the quickest of strikers but he was a great finisher,? declares the Sikkimese striker. A fact that Bhowmick affirms. ?He was like a cheetah on the hunt. Junior could smell goals,? says the East Bengal coach.

Last Sunday, true to his self, Cristiano Sebastiao de Lima Junior died while scoring one.