Teenage sensation Endrick dented England’s soccer prowess in his first international goal in Saturday’s friendly at Wembley.
Coming off their worst period for over 60 years, Brazil’s new boss Dorival Junior started his bid to revive the five-time world champions with a 1-0 win against England.
This was a first significant step in the right direction for the Selecao, who marked their manager’s debut with victory against an England side expected to make a strong challenge to win Euro 2024.
On a cathartic evening for Brazil after their wretched 2023, it was fitting the highly-rated Endrick bagged Brazil’s late winner.
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The Palmeiras forward, due to join Real Madrid in July, has been tipped to succeed Neymar as Brazil’s latest superstar and his match-winning cameo appearance off the bench was a suitable coming of age moment in his third appearance.
Aged 17 years and 246 days, Endrick is the youngest senior international goal-scorer at Wembley.
Endrick’s emergence is a breath of fresh air for Brazil after an unusually stale period for the Selecao.
Causing England problems with their pace and movement, Brazil were inches away from taking the lead when Lucas Paqueta’s shot from 12 yards cannoned back off the post.
They went close again when the error-prone Harry Maguire’s woeful backpass was intercepted by Raphinha for a low strike that flashed just wide.
Endrick stole the spotlight in the 80th minute when the teenager tapped in defying England’s appeals for offside after Vinicius’s shot was saved by Jordan Pickford.
England’s Manager, Gareth Southgate’s reacted ”There were lots of very good performances. It was a top-level game, we controlled long parts of it and had as many attempts on goal as them. In the end it’s that ruthless moment that decides the game. But there were some important individual performances for us. Anthony [Gordon] was excellent, both sides of his game.
”Ben Chilwell was very good I thought. He was aggressive in his defending, he gave us width. We have to manage him carefully because he’s been out for a while.
”It’s a classic game against a South American team. In a [competitive game] there might have been more cards given. We knew to expect that and we played from the back really well. I’m not unhappy with a lot about the performance.
”[Kyle Walker] felt something. We don’t know yet how serious it is. He’s a player who hasn’t been injured very often so he’s not quite sure what it is. We’ll assess it over the next few days.”
