“I want to make history and be the winningest Brazilian in the club’s history. I want to win titles and show my full potential, show everything I can do.”
This phrase comes from striker Estêvão, from Palmeiras and the Brazilian team, taken from a recent interview given to the website Transfermarkt.
The club in question is Chelsea, from England, with whom the 17-year-old player, previously nicknamed Messinho, has already been negotiated.
The London team that wears blue spent 34 million euros (R$ 207.7 million at current exchange rates) in the middle of this year to have him from the middle of next year, after he turns 18.
I consider the skinny Estêvão (1.76 m, 62 kg), a skilled left-footer who plays on the right wing, to be the greatest national talent at the moment, among those in his age group. Play a lot.
He won the starting line-up for Palmeiras in the Brazilian Championship and is the top scorer not only for the team, but in the competition, with 12 goals in 27 matches – he started playing 22 of them.
He is also the leader in assists (passes that result in a goal) in the Brazilian Championship, with eight, tied with Argentine midfielder Rodrigo Garro, 26, from Corinthians, who scored five fewer goals.
Estêvão scored the winning goal by 1-0 over Grêmio, on Friday (8), which served to reduce, at the end of the 33rd round (out of a total of 38), to 4 points the difference between Palmeiras and leader, Botafogo.
With his head still here, but at the same time there, so much so that he is already talking about showing, when in Europe, what he is capable of, Estêvão dreams big, with many titles, more than any other Brazilian has achieved for Chelsea.
Something possible… as long as he stays with the Blues for an adequate amount of time to make the goal viable, without being traded.
The relationship between the number 41 of alviverde and the team from the English capital is long, lasting until 2033, with an undisclosed salary – the current one, depending on the (unofficial) source consulted, is R$ 35 thousand or R$ 100 thousand per month.
The idealized record will not come in the first season, when, if he is part of the main squad and has the chance to play, Estêvão will be able, at most, to win five titles: English Championship (Premier League), FA Cup, English League Cup, Super Cup of England and Champions League (or Europa League or Conference League).
Chelsea will definitely compete in the first three tournaments in the 2025/2026 season.
The others will depend on this season winning the Conference League (European interclubs that guarantee to compete in the Europa League), winning the English Championship or the FA Cup (which guarantees being in the English Super Cup) and the final classification in the current Premier League ( which gives places to the Champions League, Europa League and Conference League, with only one of them being able to play).
Even if the extremely unlikely thing happened – the team lifted the five cups –, the São Paulo native from Franca would not be the most successful Brazilian for Chelsea.
Estêvão is the 20th Brazilian to be signed by the team. The first, in 1999, was the Gaucho defender Emerson Thome, who stopped playing in 2007 – he is now 52 years old.
Who won the most titles among the other 18? It was not former full-back Filipe Luís, current Flamengo coach, nor defender Thiago Silva, who returned to Brazil to, at the end of his career, play again for Fluminense.
His name is well known: David Luiz, former Brazilian national team like those mentioned in the previous paragraph, Brazil’s starting defender in the 2014 World Cup, who at 37 is still active for Flamengo.
David Luiz had two spells at Chelsea (2011 to 2014 and 2016 to 2019), and in them won six trophies: one English Championship, two FA Cups, one Champions League and two Europa Leagues.
So, when it comes to titles at Chelsea, seven is the “magic number” for Estêvão. Coming to him, he will be the Brazilian who has won the most times with the club’s shirt.
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