Not long ago, when it was confirmed that Estevao Willian was joining Chelsea, we started posting clips of his goals and assists.
Now, we’ve almost given up. They’re just coming too thick and too fast! Last night he racked up another assist as Palmeiras beat Atletico Goianiense 3-1 in the Brazilian top flight. That takes the Verdão to second place in the league with 16 games played.
They’ve scored 25 goals in total, and of then Willian has contributed to an incredible 9 – 5 goals and 4 assists after last night.
Those figures are incredible for a teenager. It’s no wonder it’s being reported that Brazil are considering calling him up for a senior cap before too long.
Last night’s performance earned plenty of praise from the media in Brazil. Famous football paper Globo reported as such:
“Even though he was marked hard, he found space throughout the game. He provided an assist and finished the ball in the third goal, an own goal. Decisive, again.”
A clever strategy working out already
Chelsea’s strategy with Willian has so far been perfect. They knew he couldn’t move to Europe until he was 18, so they swooped this summer, before his price got too high, then agreed to loan him back to the club where he’s grown up to continue playing.
There was a similar arrangement when we bought Christian Pulisic a few years ago, but in that case Dortmund were no longer incentivised to play the winger, so he ended up out of the team for a lot of the second half of the season.
In Willian’s case, there are incentives in the transfer terms based on what he does while still at Palmeiras. That encourages them to keep playing and developing him. Everyone’s a winner, and we get to enjoy another year of exciting clips of the winger tearing up Brazilian defences.
