Can Rafael fit into Louis van Gaal's Manchester United regime?

The Premier League season was a week away when Manchester United manager Louis van Gaal sent a message out that he wanted to see several players face-to-face in his office. The players knew what it was about: their future at the club.

Some expected it; they knew they didn't have a future. Others didn't, while different individuals went to the coach they knew best, Ryan Giggs, and asked whether the gaffer wanted to see them. Giggs laughed at one and said: "Why would he want to see you?" But moods change with results. The player who'd spoken to Giggs was called to see the manager a couple of weeks later and told that he could leave.

When Van Gaal met the players, he treated them with respect, honesty and compassion. He gave them ample time to get a move elsewhere and to instruct their agents to find suitors. His line was: "You're a good lad, a good player and a good professional; that's why you're at Manchester United. But you need to be playing a lot more than you're likely to play at Manchester United."

Rafael was one of the players who saw Van Gaal. He may have been surprised, for he's long been seen as having a long future at United. He was popular with fans; he'd risen through the academy having been spotted at 15 with his twin brother, Fabio. He was also one of the few United players who seemed to come to life against Liverpool and scored a curling left-foot strike that bounced in off the post at Anfield in September 2012, the first season he became a first-choice player. A few months later, he was United's best player in the home game against Real Madrid.

The rash decisions and mistakes that had often characterized his play weren't completely eliminated from the defender's game, but they seemed fewer, and none were as serious as that which saw him sent off against Bayern Munich in a 2010 -- he'd been excellent until his red card.

Most importantly, Rafael could defend and attack. He was perfect for a top team like United, and Sir Alex Ferguson was wise enough to realise that young footballers commit errors. He also knew that Rafael and Fabio were groove-riders for United's batch of Portuguese speakers. Cristiano Ronaldo, Anderson, Rodrigo Possebon and Nani all gravitated to Casa Da Silva for a lashing of feijoada (Brazilian black beans with smoked meats and rice).

"Rafa is very strong mentally," said Possebon. "He's very focused and determined. You have to be all of these things if you're going to play regularly for the biggest team in the world at such as young age. And the feijoada was great!"

Their house in Brazil, where they'd spend the summer, has its own football pitch and stages 11-a-side games every night. Ferguson could influence and enforce in Manchester, but he struggled to stop the Da Silvas doing what they loved in Petropolis, their hilly home city just north of Rio. He reassured himself that an addiction to football was better than drink or gambling.

Rafael was one of the players who suffered last season at United. He wasn't one of the big-name players who entered into a power struggle with David Moyes which resulted in those on both sides losing and departing. But he didn't always see eye-to-eye with Moyes, and matters came to a head in the dressing room after the Fulham game in February. The marauding right-back had stopped marauding -- maybe he was still coming to terms with Ferguson's departure, a decision that he says left him in "shock."

Arguments are normal in football. Matters come to a head every day, and only a fraction of what goes on inside the dressing room leaves it. Like last week at Leicester, when Van Gaal's ticking off of his players was so loud that it was heard. Damn those new stadiums with their paper-thin walls; you'd never hear the noise through the solid bricks walls of the older stadiums.

Rafael has long been viewed as a successor to Gary Neville, of whom he said: "I've always had players here to look up to and learn from: Vida [Nemanja Vidic] and Rio [Ferdinand]; Gary when he played. Gary's positioning and heading was excellent, as was the way he pushed strikers away from the area."

The right-back's United future was first questioned last season, though some at the club say he's never been the same contented soul since his twin brother left. Perhaps that's understandable, but Rafael's form had dropped and there was talk of a replacement. Because Moyes was in charge, that was inevitably an Everton player, Seamus Coleman. Injuries didn't help the Brazilian, who can cut a carefree figure telling stories about being mistaken for his brother, but he isn't daft. I sat down with him a year ago and he was critical of those in power in Brazil and supported the plight of those protesting on the streets.

"The protests have helped," he said. "The leaders in Brazil know that they have to change. They've seen the people in the streets. Before the leaders did what they wanted. Now they have to listen if there's a million people on the street protesting. Already there have been changes. There had to be. People were used to corruption, but now they protest. It's still a young democracy."

Rafael turned 24 in July but he's already played 162 United games since making his debut in 2008. He didn't leave Old Trafford during the transfer window, but his troubles haven't evaporated. How could they, when the three defenders he was most used to playing with all left at the same time?

Speculation persists that he'll be sold, and he was criticised for his role in United's 5-3 capitulation at Leicester, though he could bemoan the soft decision that saw him penalised for a foul on Jamie Vardy for Leicester's first penalty. The BBC's Robbie Savage wasn't talking about himself but Rafael when he described him "a liability, an accident waiting to happen."