Meet Gabriel – an 11-year-old boy, born without feet – has fulfilled a lifelong dream by training at the Barcelona academy in Rio de Janeiro.

The youngster, with hugely impressive football skills despite his malformation, was featured on Brazilian TV earlier this year and Gabriel said it was his dream to train with Barcelona.

Joaquim Estrada, one of the administrators at the Barcelona academy said: “We’ve never had a case like this, but its no problem as we have room for everyone here.”

And to the delight of all involved Gabriel passed all the tests for the youngsters at the Barcelona training and excelled alongside his peers. With talk in football circles in Brazil of “the boy with no feet who played very well.”