The Indian Express (Delhi Edition)
Endrick, Brazil’s new wonderkid
At 17, he joins a hallowed list of Brazilian football superstars to score an international goal as a teenager
IN THE most hallowed of England grounds, Wembley, a 17-year-old Brazilian striker arrived on the world stage. Endrick, the short and rapid striker with a sprightly run, would score the winner in the friendly against England.
The strike, in isolation, was not wondrous, a simple rebound off a Vinicius Junior shot that goalkeeper Jordan Pickford punched away. But there were subtler details — his clever off-the-ball dart, drifting away from defenders, anticipation that Vinicius would pass him the ball, the sheer desire to get to the stray ball, the split-second decision making, and the smouldering physicality.
He entered a revered group of Brazilian greats. Only three others from his country has scored an international goal when they were this young. Pele, Ronaldo and Edu.
On first viewing, it seems as though the ball hit him rather than he hit the ball, but the slo-mo showed how he steered the ball goalward with his instep. There was pace on the ball. A heavier touch would have made it squirm off his boot. A softer touch would have resulted in the ball bobbling off his feet. But his touch had the perfect weight to reach the destination. Remarkable was his control of the body too. He could have over-run, but decelerated a bit so that he maintained perfect balance. The follow-through was minimal. “Like Romario,” a pundit whispered in the post-match show.
Endrick’s ears might be used to hearing this comparison. It’s more a similarity in physique, the two-footedness and the ruthlessness in front of goal. Endrick is more of a modern forward, who presses relentlessly and has an incredible work rate. He can be spectacular too — like he showed with a ferocious left-footed volley in the 3-3 draw against Spain. Or his overhead kick for Palmeiras when he was only 15 testifies. That goal, though, was one of outrageous acrobatics. Four men were shielding him, he broke away from them, paused, backpedalled, and with an effortless flip of his body, suspended himself in the air and swished the ball to the back of the net.
A father's dream
The goal won him instant admirers in Europe; Chelsea nearly signed him last year but the deal fell through at the last minute. But Real Madrid pounced in and acquired his signature for 52 millions pounds, wading off competition from, among other clubs, Barcelona and Liverpool. His father Douglas was in tears when Madrid brought him. Endrick’s tale would be incomplete without the story of Douglas too.
When Douglas was young, he wanted to be a footballer. But his father took his children to a suburb in Brasilia and abandoned them. “I lived in the orphanage for six months with my two sisters,” he told MARCA. Still he played football and travelled to Sao Paulo and turned out for small clubs in the lower tiers. The money, sometimes, didn’t suffice to pay the rent.
Once he was thrown out of his lodge and spent several nights on the street, before a lady gave him shelter in a hostel. He returned to his hometown Taguatinga, where he and his wife opened a cafe in an underground train station, before he got a job as a janitor.
When Endrick was born, he began to relive the dream of playing for his country. When he turned four, Douglas knocked on the doors of his former clubmate Fabio, who had a small coaching centre in the backyard of his grocery store in Valparaiso De Goias, a suburb in Brasilia. Fabio admitted only boys above six and Endrick was small too. But he eventually relented to his friend’s requests.
In some time, Fabio realised that he was nurturing a special talent. “He bested the older, bigger players. His control with the ball, even when he ran with it, and even at that age, was special,” Fabio told O Globo.
Type Brazilian wunderkinds on Youtube and the screen will be deluged with thousands of super-talented kids. Douglas had posted a dozen videos of Endrick, hoping that one club or the other would get impressed. But Fabio knew he was more special than most. “He had the drive and ambition. He would not fall apart and is extremely grounded too,” Fabio explained.
Endrick thanks his mother for instilling humility. He is a devout Evangelical Christian, who seldom skips church on Sundays. “Faith is an important part of my life, it was my mother who instilled spirituality in me,” he told MARCA. He was always sensitive to the struggles his parents had endured to develop his career.
“They skipped several meals so that I could eat three meals a day,” he had said.
Once when he was boarding a flight, a shoe-shiner at the airport sought a selfie. A conversation ensued and he realised that he was in need of money to support his family. He gave him all he had in his pocket, which was the equivalent of USD 500. With Spanish and English, he learned sign language, because he says, “I want to connect with everyone. I want to speak to the mute or the people who don’t hear.”
Endrick is not yet a finished product, there have been hundreds of Brazilian prodigies that withered un-blossomed. But he possesses the ingredients, in his feet, body and mind, to inherit the mantle of Romario and Ronaldo.