MATHEUS CUNHA is the movie star who can give Manchester United blockbuster billing again.
Red Devils fans will be getting the popcorn ready after their new £62.5million leading man was unveiled on Thursday.
The brilliant Brazilian heads to Manchester under huge pressure to deliver, as boss Ruben Amorim’s first major buy, on the back of the 20-time champions’ worst season for half a century.
Many new arrivals have buckled under the burden at Old Trafford.
Yet already some are drawing comparisons with Eric Cantona’s arrival from Leeds in 1992.
It is easy to see why, as both combine off-the-cuff genius with an on-the-edge attitude that is rarely anything but box office.
Frenchman Cantona was the driving force as United ended a 26-year title drought in the Premier League’s debut season — sparking an era of unrivalled success.
And while no one expects Cunha to do the same, there is a belief Amorim has bought a hair-trigger talent who will relish dragging England’s biggest club off the canvas.
The coach behind his big break — as a stick-thin teenager with Brazilian minnows Coritiba — reckons United fans are in for a treat.
Cesar Bueno was in charge of Coritiba’s youth set-up when a wiry 14-year-old wannabe walked in to the club — and immediately blew everyone away.
Cunha, a rising rookie star of the futsal scene, had never even played a full-scale game in his life, but Bueno wasted no time in snapping him up immediately.
The kid with a pipe-cleaner profile had a deadly eye for goal from day one, plus the know-how and nous of an old-timer.
But it was Cunha’s puff-his-chest-out knack of using pressure as the springboard to greater heights which always stood out for Bueno.
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It took him through the ranks to Swiss side Sion in the blink of an eye, then a glamour move to RB Leipzig inside two years . . . which is where his career hit the buffers.
For once the Brazilian striker was not the headline act. And after 18 low-key months, Cunha joined Hertha Berlin — where a revival tempted Atletico Madrid to sign him in 2021.
When he once again slipped into the shadows as just one of the general cast, his future looked ominous.
Yet Wolves had enough faith to bring him to England, initially on loan and then full-time, and he quickly became a Molineux A-lister.
Now the grandest stage of all beckons — and Bueno is certain Cunha, 26, will be rubbing his hands at the prospect.
He insisted: “Matheus needs to feel pressure as the main actor in the film, the team needs to focus on him.
“That’s when he is enormous.
“He doesn’t have a huge ego, not at all, but needs to have the role of leader to perform at his best.
“Otherwise he will just fade away.
“It was why he didn’t succeed at Leipzig and Madrid — he didn’t feel like a leader.
“Matheus is very ambitious, very self-confident and he needs to be the protagonist.
“If a club accepts Matheus is one of the main men, he reacts very well.
“That’s when he is at his best, so deadly he is unstoppable at times.
“Hertha realised it, which is why he did well with them, and it’s the same at Wolves.
“He performs best with the responsibility as main man.
“Many players in Brazil have great technical quality but are weak mentally.
“Matheus is so tough in that respect, which is why he adapted well to the English league.
“Now he has to take advantage of an opportunity to be the marquee player at an even bigger club . . . one which is more important, where he can win trophies.”
