KLÉBERSON’S house in Cheshire is homely enough with a photograph from his wedding day in the hall, the toys of his young son (Kléberson Jr) scattered on the floor and Brazilian TV piped on to the vast plasma screen. The Brazil international looks set for life but every trip to the kitchen is a reminder of the fragility of a career at Manchester United.

This was the kitchen that Jaap Stam had installed but never got to use. The day before it was fitted, Sir Alex Ferguson informed the big Holland defender that he was selling him to Lazio. The units stayed, Stam departed. Stam was an established centre half at the time of his brutal culling while, more than a year since he signed from Atlético Paranaense for £5.93 million, José Kléberson Pereira remains a peripheral member of Ferguson’s squad. He has made 16 league appearances, four this season.

In the circumstances, it should be an anxious figure who sits down to talk but Kléberson does not stop grinning, whatever the question. Yes, the transition has not been easy. Yes, he might have played more if he had joined Newcastle United. “But, given the chance to go to Manchester United, no one is going to turn that down,” he said. “In Brazil, that is the opportunity of a lifetime. I am glad I did it.”

So how to explain the huge contradiction that sees Kléberson competing with Eric Djemba-Djemba and Phil Neville for a place on the bench and yet he is first choice for his country. He was in the starting XI when Brazil won the World Cup in 2002, the Copa America in 2004 and lined up alongside Ronaldinho, Kaka and Ronaldo this month for a World Cup qualifier.

It was Kléberson who, in the quarter-final against England in 2002, slipped the ball away from Paul Scholes and set Ronaldinho off on his fateful, swaying run through Sven- Göran Eriksson’s defence. In the final, he was widely acclaimed as the second-best player, behind Ronaldo, striking the crossbar.

“Like many players coming to England, it is a shock when you see the speed and the physical strength,” he said. “I have a gym at home and I have been spending time on the weights. The club has also got me taking creatine (a protein supplement) to improve my strength.

“When I go home and people say, ‘Is everything OK? Why are you not in the team?’ I tell them that I am very happy. I understand the manager’s position because he has many great players in midfield. I am young (25) and I know it can take one or two seasons to fit in.

“I can go to a club like Newcastle after here but I could never turn down the chance to try Manchester United. Edu had some of the same problems at Arsenal but he told me that I could succeed here if I was relaxed. I think I am ready to show that I have made the adjustment and I am not thinking about playing anywhere else. I just need a few games and not so much bad luck with injuries.”

The latest, a sprained ankle sustained in Wednesday’s Carling Cup victory over Arsenal, has ruled him out for up to three weeks. Slight of frame, Kléberson has taken a battering in the hurly-burly of the English game, also suffering a dislocated shoulder as well as knee problems.

There have also been off-field complications. Kléberson married his teenage bride only a few months before moving to England and his son arrived in exceptional circumstances when the Theatre of Dreams became the Theatre of Screams. “I was playing against Blackburn Rovers,” he said. “Dayane (his wife) should not really have come to the game (because she was more than eight months pregnant), but when she realised I was playing she insisted.

“She was sitting there in the stand and when I scored, she jumped up. Her contractions started right then, that second. When I came off the field she was standing there saying, ‘Quick, quick, we need to go to hospital. I scored my goal 38 minutes into the game. At 11.38 that night my son was born at Wythenshawe Hospital.”

With his family settled here and a friend on hand to cook his favourite Brazilian dishes, Kléberson denies that he has suffered from homesickness. Team-mates vouch that, although his English is limited, he is a friendly face around the dressing-room.

A World Cup winner should not lack in self-assurance. Young, timid and relatively unknown when he flew to Japan and South Korea, Kléberson’s life was transformed by victory over Germany in Yokohama, although he says that the quarter-final triumph over England, when he was preferred to Juninho, was more significant.