Estevao Willian – The new Neymar or the new Denilson?

Estevao Willian Almeida de Oliveira Goncalves or as he’s most recently become known by just “Estevao” is a right winger currently plying his trade for Palmeiras in the Brazil Serie A.

Despite being just 17 years of age, having been born in 2007 he has been turning heads left and right due to his outrageous footballing ability across various youth levels in Brazil.

He has most recently gotten world-wide attention however having been the subject of interest from a couple of the biggest European clubs in the world and as he looks close to sealing a move to Chelsea.

Now, let’s take a look at who he is, how he burst onto the scene and what this means for both him and the club he might sign for.

Estevao was born in Franca, in the state of Sao Paulo in 2007 on April the 24th. As usual with kids from Brazil, Football was the way to go but ironically he didn’t enroll into any Sao Paulo academy team rather traveling almost 600 km south to Belo Horizonte, joining up with Cruzeiro at Toca do Raposa.

He quickly shined though, picking up a rather…emblematic nickname – “Messinho ” due to his resemblance to the man himself of having the ball stick to his feet like glue and beating people in 1v1 situations easily.

However, even though he was very impressive, he had joined the club at a time where financial irregularities were quite normal, as odd as it sounds and unfortunately the young talent suffered directly because of it.

In 2019 he had his name mixed up in a humongous case where then vice-president of Cruzeiro Itair Machado had signed a contract with various businessmen agreeing to the club ceding a certain percentage of economic rights of youth and professional players as a way to pay off the club’ debts, an action that is strictly prohibited by FIFA.

Subsequently, his father [Ivo Goncalves] was also the target of a criminal investigation filed by the public ministry of the state of Minas Gerais due to alleged “ideological falsehood”.

Essentially, that is what caused a massive strain in the relationship between the youngster and Cruzeiro and similarly to Vitor Roque [now at Barcelona] who left Toca do Raposa due to various legal issues for way less than he should have, Estevao packed up his bags and returned to Sao Paulo to join Palmeiras shortly after turning 14.

There was, as you’d suspect, much drama involved, with Cruzeiro’ president Sergio Rodrigues deeming the move “immoral” whilst Estevao’ father stated that the lack of legal and moral support given to both him and his son throughout this whole legal fiasco was what caused the huge rift.

Regardless, the door on the Minas Gerais club was shut and the young Brazilian did all his talking on the pitch helping Palmeiras win the Paulista U15, U17 and both the U17 Copa do Brasil and Campeonato Brasileiro.

He did almost the same thing again, the year after [2023] and was called up to the Brazil U17 World Cup despite only recently turning 16.

The key thing to be noted here is that during his time at Palmeiras’ academy he was regarded as a bigger prospect than Endrick who took the world by storm following a surreal 2022 Copinha.

And now, we come to the present, as Estevao has been slowly introduced into the first team squad of Palmeiras by manager Abel Ferreira.

Despite giving him limited time and carefully protecting him, he went on to recently praise the youngster in a press-conference stating “He’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen.”

So where does the youngster play? What is his style and how will that fit the club that grabs him? Let’s take a deep dive below.

Position and style of play

Estevao is a right winger through and through. One only needs to take a glance at the heat map above to realise where he prefers to operate and understand it.

And whilst yes, it is the one from his youth level days, it is still pretty definitive in terms of area of the pitch and role.

Despite preferring to use his left foot for the majority of his time on the ball, he’s ambipedal and as such his technique and level of dribble is a step above a lot of players in world football, let alone his peers.

Given his size and stature, it’s no surprise that he has a low center of gravity and great agility and as such can glide around players with ease.

It just adds to the fact that he can change pace at the blink of an eye and whether he sticks to the flank and run towards the byline or cuts inside, he can beat people in stride and create much needed separation.

That being said, his main preference remains cutting inside and creating space for himself to either shoot or play a through ball.

As he’s very direct and extremely strong in 1v1 situations, he manages to become a consistent menace and thorn into the opposition’ plans given his unpredictability coupled with consistency [in terms of dribbling output].

Now obviously, the counter-argument to all of this is whether he always needs to receive the ball in front of him but despite being relatively light-weight he’s very comfortable in being given the ball with his back to goal, in tight spaces [in those half-space areas especially] and subsequently playing out from the situation using his technique and superb ball-retention.

And whilst so far in his modest footballing career he’s been given the ability to roam freely and wreak havoc from wherever he deems fit exactly due to all of this natural ability at hand, in recent games for Palmeiras he’s shown the desire to work off the ball and aid the team’ full back in order to avoid the opposition getting numerical superiority.

As time passes and as he develops it’s likely that we see less of that but the desire to work is enough to sway any manager and get him the much deserved extra praise.

If there is anything I’d personally state that needs developing is his vision and his “eye for a pass” because at certain times his desire to take on a shot or being “caught up” in the dribble means he ignores certain passing options.

That isn’t exactly egoism per se but rather inexperience, as it can easily be worked on and “manipulated”.

It may sound like I am singing his praises too much but the reality of the situation is that there aren’t many weaknesses to the player as a sole entity.

He’s just turned 17 and is just now growing into his body so he will [or is at least expected to] put on weight/muscle as has Endrick even if the latter’s build is completely different.

It’s why so many have compared him to Neymar and despite numerous kids from Brazil being given that tag early on in their careers, he seems closest to it.

What is Clearlake’s plan?

The ongoing question for a lot of the young players that have joined the London club in recent times is where would one fit in and Estevao is no different.

To top it all of, for his position, he is rivaled by players such as Cole Palmer, Noni Madueke, Omari Hutchinson, Angelo Gabriel, potentially Raheem Sterling [if not deployed on the left] and also potentially Kendry Paez who will also join up in 2025 if Estevao’ deal materialises.

It is a very valid cause for concern as on the surface of it all, it does look like stockpiling players in one position when you already have an abundance of young talent in it.

That being said, I believe it has to be seen from a variety of ways in order to fully grasp the whole situation and only then can one give conclusive judgment. Now number one, and the easiest to address here is Kendry.

In more recent times, as his game has elevated and he’s become a mainstay for Independiente del Valle he’s turned into a more centrally oriented player.

He still does occupy the right hand side more but he does feature more as a 10/advanced 8 in Gandolfi’ system and as such is unlikely to be a threat to Estevao’ position given that the players’ style is completely different to one another.

The Jury is also still out on Noni Madueke and Raheem Sterling and whilst one looks to be playing into fantastic form, the other is “one foot out the door” and may not be part of Chelsea by the time Estevao arrives in 2025.

Number two is the fact that Chelsea, and their new ownership mainly, embarked on a journey aimed to replicate Manchester City’ multi-club model.

We’ve seen it so far with their acquisition of Strasbourg and their hope of expanding that with links to Portuguese clubs surfacing here and there and also forming a very strong relationship with Santos in Brazil.

As such, the ongoing belief is that players like Angelo Gabriel and Omari, despite being very talented, will always be seen as second fiddle in a sense.

That isn’t a knock on them because often times we see people believe that a player is only good if he plays for the biggest clubs in Europe.

Both of these youngsters have showcased tremendous ability at their respective clubs and are looking at carving out a successful career in Europe’s top competitions.

Whether through the multiclub model or just through loans here and there, the overall belief with most of these talented players is that if they aren’t up to scratch and an absolute hit then they are likely seen as a profit, having been bought for less than what they will eventually be sold for.

Also, it does need to be mentioned that over the course of the last few years the right winger position did struggle to consistently produce top tier talent.

Similar to the defensive midfield position there was a certain “shortage” of high level talent and as such, my personal opinion is that stacking up this high number of players is largely to be safe.

As odd as it sounds, it isn’t a negative to secure some of the best talent at hand especially when the whole of the world may have a long-term problem down the line finding sufficient enough personnel at said position.

Which ties on to my next point, Estevao is just that good. He’s one of those talents that you don’t just pass up on if the opportunity presents itself.

In this case of Chelsea, one could argue that it really isn’t a necessity and I actually do agree in a sense but at the same time in terms of pure raw talent and what you are banking on – Estevao CAN be better than a Madueke.

He CAN be better than any one of the players mentioned on that list excluding Cole Palmer but at the same time the two differ in playing style so there is also the question of what the game plan is and overall idea and approach.

The caveat here is the word CAN – whether he will become one is obviously the biggest question mark.

It’s a problem that comes with other questions such as the obvious settling in period that he’ll need, the development, the pathway that needs to be provided as well as his own desire to develop and improve over time.

Nurturing talent is at least 50% of the job that comes with acquiring it.

But one can never be sure how that goes down and at the end of the day, if you can’t take a risk on undoubted talent then there is no point in buying players because every transfer, whether big or small, possesses a risk in itself.

Ask yourself this though, if you had the chance to pick up a talent that resembles Neymar just before he started blowing up at Santos and shining in the Libertadores, would you do it?

And that brings me onto Clearlake and their plan on signing all these high-profile youngsters.

On one hand, I feel really excited that Chelsea have gone out of their way to secure two of the best, if not THE best young U18 talents from South America in Kendry and Estevao [and this obviously is hindsight granted Chelsea secure this move].

I can’t speak highly enough of Paez, and same goes for Estevao because the talent with both is through the roof and although the Blues do have a historically questionable approach to talent that they’ve had at the club, I can’t help but feel excited about it.

It’s likely bias because of how much I’ve seen of them over the course of the last few years having predominantly focused on South American football and most notably Brazil but these are era-defining signings in a sense.

If developed correctly you are looking at what Real Madrid have done with players like Tchouameni, Vinicius, Rodrygo and Camavinga. But that also comes with massive repercussions that I can’t help but be wary of.

The fact that you’ve signed these two is amazing but you’ve also signed a plethora of other young talent in various different range prices that either hinders your idea of building the first-team squad or definitely shows up financially and may cause problems later down the line.

The one good thing with talents under 18 and from South America is that their price will be spread through the year of contract [like any other transfer would] but also the time in between they are “signed” and they turn 18.

It’s why signing Kendry for the price mentioned is so ludicrous to me that I just can’t help but sing everybody involved’ praises enough.

But again, it all sounds peachy on the outside and even if some of these youngsters are never planned or intended to see a starting spot under the bright lights of Stamford Bridge, when do you actually end up turning a profit?

Some of the fees spent mean that not just a regular, above-average loan spell or even season here and there can save your investment. The hope is that they are so good and because of their age they are always going to be in demand.

The point I raised above about lack of talent in certain positions is that teams might even be desperate for a deputable player even if he isn’t the one that they’d ideally look at. And yet those are too many IFs.

It’s a lot of questions that can’t be answered easily and are hard to adequately plan for without all the potential repercussions that are more likely to come back to haunt you.

Overall, my belief is that the Clearlake model is a very ambitious one but it needs time and careful, precious planning in order to succeed.

It needed to have the multi-club model set up in place much better than it was before Andrey and Casedei’ loans happened, for example.

And even despite that, in the look of talent such as Estevao you just don’t turn your back and think twice.

You already have problems on your head, various even, but you can ask any Brazilian who is very heavily-invested in football on who the next big thing in Brazil is and they’d tell you it’s him.

This isn’t a Kenedy, nor is it a Nathan. So many players from the country of coffee have seen those expectations be dropped on their shoulders and they’ve not managed to live up to them and one can never be too sure but this feels different, It should be.

You’d prefer that problem rather than watching him on the TV in the shirt of an opponent for whichever club and thinking to yourself: “That could have been us.”

Traga-me, Estevao!

By Peter Pankovski

(Check out my podcast below for more content on South American stars)

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