Liverpool new boy Roberto Firmino used to borrow money to get to games. Now he wants to emulate Ronaldinho

The scramble for information about Roberto Firmino since his name first popped up in the gossip columns will have come as no surprise to those accustomed to the sound and fury of the summer transfer window in Europe.

The creative midfielder, who is heading to Liverpool in a deal worth £28million, is hardly a household name, even if the internet would have you believe that every third football fan out there has spent weeks poring over the intricacies of Hoffenheim's attacking system over the last couple of seasons.

But there has also been a huge surge in interest in Brazil over a player who, although well on his way to becoming a regular for the Seleção, remains something of an unknown quantity in his homeland.

While it says plenty about the shifting dynamic of football culture in Brazil that it takes transfer interest from the Premier League to shed some light on such a promising talent, the 23-year-old left a relatively light footprint in the domestic game before making the switch to the Bundesliga.

Read my Roberto Firmino profile on the Mirror website.