When I Was Nine....

...I had a pretty good arm for my age, had a pretty good batting eye for my age, and couldn't hit for crap at that or any other age. As such I wasn't worried about my professional prospects. So, I cannot imagine what it must be like for a soccer playing kid that age to draw interest from Manchester United.

Manchester United has recruited a 9-year-old soccer prodigy based on video footage featuring his skills.

The club brought in Rhain Davis after his grandfather sent a DVD to United youth staff showing the boy playing for an under-10 team in Brisbane, Australia.

"Manchester United is proud of its history of developing talented young players, and invests considerable time and resources into trying to find the best young players of the future," the club said in a statement.

In Davis' case, however, United need only have invested four minutes. That is the length of a YouTube clip featuring Davis's dribbling, stepover and goal-scoring skills -- viewed more than 800,000 times on the site -- that has led fans to describe him as the next Wayne Rooney.

Damn. At that age I would have been content with being considered the next Ken Reitz.