Born in Luanda in 1984, Rafael left Angola as a child and was taken to the Netherlands by his uncle and aunt. He joined Ajax's youth academy and developed rapidly, eventually becoming one of the club's outstanding young forwards.
By 2001-02 he was playing for the Ajax reserves, scoring twice in 18 league appearances, while also featuring prominently in the club's memorable run to the Dutch Cup semi-finals.
His progress was such that Ajax wanted to keep him, but Rafael's immigration status became a decisive problem. As an asylum seeker, he was refused the work permit required to play professionally in the Netherlands. At 18, he left Ajax for Hertha BSC, ending a remarkable youth career in Amsterdam before he could make a senior league appearance for the club.
Yet when Rafael looks back on Ajax, the defining memory isn't the way his time there ended. It is what the academy gave him.
He recalled to Football Presse: "When I left Angola, there was a huge reason why I left Angola. But coming to Holland and being part of the Ajax Academy, it gave me trust, how to believe in myself that I'm able to create something big.
"It gave me a lot of confidence as well in my own person. And the Ajax DNA back in the day, even now, but it wasn't the way it was before, is the winning mentality. Becoming second in a competition, which is a huge effort, or a good thing to do if you become second, but for Ajax mentality it wasn't acceptable.
"They say if you become in second place, you are the first loser. For us it was, either you become number one or no."
That mentality became part of Rafael's football identity, but the education went considerably further than simply demanding that young players win.
For Rafael, Ajax taught him that football was about understanding the game from every angle. He wasn't simply developed as a striker. He was encouraged to understand the responsibilities of the players around him, which would later become important when he moved into senior football and encountered different tactical systems.
"The great thing you're going to learn when you go through all the years in the Ajax Academy is tactic, technique and everything at the highest level. The coaches back in the day were asking for you to be brave enough to make mistakes.
"You have to make mistakes so you can learn from those mistakes. And when you are in the game, you're not just playing the game to win the game, you have to play the game to dominate.
"This type of structure that came from Ajax and the system we played, and the football IQ that I could develop back in the day, made me able actually to play in every league in the world."
For a young forward, that meant learning what happened beyond the penalty area. Rafael was deliberately exposed to different positions so that he could understand the movements and responsibilities of teammates rather than seeing the game exclusively through the eyes of a striker.
"The coach was asking me to play in different types of positions, so I could get the understanding of what the fullback does, what the attacking forward does, number 10, number 7, 8. You know, different types of positions, I should really know the function.
"So I needed to learn how every single player in my team, what are their qualities, the strongest point, the style of playing. I was also forced to play in different types of positions.
"That gave me the understanding of how to function with the ball and without the ball. I needed to learn how I could be significant in a team."
That idea of significance is important to Rafael's understanding of his development. Ajax wasn't simply teaching him where to stand or how to pass the ball. It was teaching him to recognise the qualities of the people around him and adapt his own game accordingly.
The technical work was relentless.
"In Holland it was more about details. Details on positioning yourself, details in the positioning game. You knew that 80%, 90% of the game is ball possession, how to function with the ball and without the ball.
"And also the technique, how to handle the ball, because this is something we did every single day. Passing drills. That's what I learned in Holland."
It was an education that Rafael believes travelled with him when he eventually left Amsterdam for Germany. At Hertha, he entered the Bundesliga as a teenager and quickly found himself playing senior football, making his first six league appearances during the 2002-03 season.
The contrast with Germany would reinforce what Ajax had taught him.
"In Germany, back in the day, it was just about results. Why? Because you need results to maintain in the league, first of all, and you need results to qualify for something.
"And of course, in the end of all this, there is money attached to it. If you win games, you get a bonus. If you perform well, there is a bigger opportunity to go to a better club. So that was the difference between these two countries."
Ajax therefore remained more than the club where Rafael spent his formative years. It became the reference point against which he understood the football he encountered afterwards.
And there was another lesson that became increasingly valuable as his career developed: adaptability.
A player who had been taught to understand the job of a fullback, midfielder or forward could enter different dressing rooms and different systems without seeing football as something fixed. For Rafael, that was one of the great strengths of the Ajax education.
"A player who goes through the Ajax Academy, if the quality of the coaches and the bar is always higher, you'll be able to function in different types of systems. You'll be able to play in every league.
"Because I truly believe when you go through all the years in the Ajax Academy, the great thing you're going to learn is tactic, technique and everything at the highest level."
Rafael's professional career would eventually take him through Germany, Denmark and China, while he also represented Germany Under-21 before later returning to represent Angola at senior level. His career never followed the straightforward path that might have been expected when he emerged at Ajax.
But the influence of those Amsterdam years remained.
The work permit problem may have closed the door on his immediate future with Ajax, but it could not take away what he had learned there. The academy had given Rafael a belief in himself, an uncompromising attitude towards winning and a way of seeing football that went beyond his own position.
Most importantly, it taught him that a footballer shouldn't simply participate in a game.
He should understand it.
And, wherever possible, control it.