Brazil has always been known to produce some of the best players in world football, from Pele to the likes of Djalminha, Rivaldo, Ronaldo Nazario de Lima, Romario, Ronaldinho, Kaka, Neymar among some many others. Due to this, football followers always look forward to the next big star that will emerge from the South American nation.
Recently, a prodigious 15-year-old Brazilian youngster has been on the lips of everyone. He goes by the name Endrick. He came to limelight at this year’s Copinha tournament — a youth football competition for U-20 players in Brazil.
Despite being just 15 years old and playing against players much more older than him, Endrick was named as the Player of the Tournament as he guided Palmeiras to the title by scoring six goals in seven games, including an audacious overhead-kick against Oeste in the quarterfinals.
FootballOrbit brings all you need to know about Brazil’s latest rising superstar.
Endrick Felipe Moreira de Sousa, simply called Endrick, was born on the 21st of July 2006 in Brasilia, Brazil. He started his football career at Gol de Letra Foundation — a charity organisation that combines education and football for children from less privileged homes. He was born into a very poor family that can hardly afford to feed.
Endrick was almost signed by Sao Paulo when he was just 10 years old but the club couldn’t reach an agreement with his family as regards financial packages. A year later (2017), aged 11, Palmeiras signed him as they provided the youngster and his family an accommodation close to the club’s academy and offered the father, Douglas, a job at the training ground.
Endrick quickly caught attention with his insane dribbling skills and incredible goal record — he has scored 170 goals across various youth grades at the Palmeiras academy in the last 5 years.
He has always founded himself playing against boys much older than him; he made his debut for Palmeiras’ U-17 side when he was just 14 and for the U-20s at 15. He hasn’t made his professional debut for the senior team yet but its now just about when; as he is already knocking on the first team door.
Due to his stature and playing style, he has been compared with Romario and he regards Cristiano Ronaldo and Ronaldo Nazario de Lima as his football idols.
Endrick is being managed by TFM — the same sport agency managing Real Madrid’s Vinicius junior and Arsenal’s Gabriel Martinelli.
He has been linked with several European clubs including Real Madrid, Barcelona, Arsenal, Southampton, Chelsea, Ajax, Benfica, Manchester United, Liverpool and Manchester City.
He is valued at about €45m (£37.5m/$51m). He is ineligible to sign any contract until he turns 16 years old on the 21st of July 2022 and cannot leave Brazil to sign for a foreign club until he turns 18.
Endrick already has a deal with Nike. He also boasts of about 325 thousand followers on Instagram and 55,800 on Twitter
