For the past decade, football fans have been able to bridge geographical bounds between themselves and their favourite clubs thanks to social media, which has made clips and videos from matches widely accessible to fans.
With the coming of apps such as TikTok, fans have been able to create football-related content which in some cases has also been recognized by clubs through contests and other fan engagement events.
A growing pattern that is emerging currently is fans creating their own goal celebrations and posting them online which are then taken up by footballers who then imitate the same moves after scoring on the pitch.
One such fan who has slowly grown into a bit of a celebrity is Luva de Pedreiro, a Brazilian influencer who has been creating and posting footballing videos on his TikTok account.
Pedreiro, whose real name is Iran Ferreira, usually posts videos and clips of him scoring goals with top bins finishes, doing tricks and skills which are all usually followed by a very lively celebration at the end where he shouts “receebaa” in Portuguese.
The word’s literal translation is “to receive” but it is regularly used by Portuguese footballers to taunt their opponents as the better translation of it is – “how do you like that?”
With over 500K followers on Twitter, he has caught the attention of many football fans and of a few clubs and players as well.
Bayern Munich stars Joshua Kimmich and Serge Gnabry were spotted imitating Pedreiro’s celebrations in training while Cristiano Ronaldo Jr. recently posted a video of him scoring a goal after some neat footwork (surely inspired by his father) following which he shouted “receebaa” and celebrated.
It looks like the Brazilian influencer has not stopped attracting interest as Neymar Jr. became the latest footballer to acknowledge Pedriero as the influencer posted a picture of him sharing a moment with the PSG forward on Twitter.
Like many other Brazilians, Pedriero too is a huge fan of Neymar and has said in one of his videos that it was always a dream of his to meet the player.
The influencer finally got the chance to live his dream as he met up with Neymar for a program shooting for the Globo media group in Brazil.
Neymar too took to Instagram to share the picture and also expressed his joy to meet the talented youngster.
“Today I met a boy who fights for his dreams and for his family. I saw myself in him, for his simplicity and happiness. Mason’s glove I wish you all the success in the world and may God protect all his paths!!! Thank you for your love,” said the Brazilian star.
Even in this picture with Neymar, Pedriero was seen wearing his iconic gloves which he regularly sports in his football videos on TikTok and Twitter.
Having met up with the influencer, perhaps Neymar could now be tempted into celebrating with a “receebaa” after scoring a goal as he gears up to face Ecuador for Brazil’s final WC Qualifier.
