Manchester United striker Edinson Cavani has spoken of studying the game of Gabriel Batistuta as a youngster.

Cavani says the Argentine great was the first player he followed when starting to take the game seriously.

"I think that when you are young and just a kid, you never really have much time to think and reflect," he told manutd.com.

“When you're a child, all you think about is having fun and enjoying yourself, you just think about the present and enjoying the moment.

“You live from day to day. You don't give so much thought to things like that, I think that comes a bit more with age, when you get to around 13, 14 or 15 years old. That's when you start to think about and have an understanding of certain things. Which then allows you to dream and to have a desire to achieve things, to really want to be able to make it through to play at this level. I never honestly hoped to be like such-and-such a player.

“What I did do was watch players like Gabriel Batistuta and other strikers, in order to learn. But what I really wanted most at that age – as I began to understand a little better about just what football meant to me, and the passion that I had for it – was to be able to make it as an elite footballer.

“Playing at this elite level of the game meant coming to play over in Europe and representing one of the top clubs. So your career gets under way and little by little you begin to discover and become part of the world of professional football. "

"“You start to learn and develop and discover what it's all about, and begin to enjoy moments of the kind that maybe only the Lord himself knows why he creates such circumstances and life opportunities for you."