Brazil has a long line of football’s prodigal sons. Pelé. Romário. Neymar. Need I say more? 

The next future Seleção legend has arrived. Meet Endrick.

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Or, Endrick Felipe Moreira de Sousa, but you just have to remember the first one because you’re going to be hearing it a lot in the future if you haven’t already.

As you may have noticed in recent years, Real Madrid has emphasized signing young Brazilians straight from their country’s domestic league and bringing them into Spain right when they turn 18 — the earliest point at which non-European players can join a European club. Speculation says Real Madrid turned up the dial on their Brazilian scouting in response to losing out on Neymar to mortal enemies F.C. Barcelona, but at this point, it’s about more than any one player; it’s a pipeline. 

First, Los Blancos purchased the talents of Vinícius Júnior from Flamengo for a then-€45 million fee. Considering “Vini” Júnior has directly contributed to 62 La Liga goals in the past three seasons and scored the game-winning goal in the 2022 Champions League final, Real Madrid would say the investment was worth it.

Next, they went for Rodrygo from Santos for the same transfer fee, who hasn’t ascended to quite Vinícius’s level of stardom but has become a reliable starter and able to play any position across the forward lines. He’s also a clutch presence in the Champions League, scoring five goals on their run to the 2022 final and five more last season. He already has three goals and two assists in this year’s tournament. 

Real Madrid tried to go back to the Flamengo well and signed Reinier Jesus in 2020, but he bounced around on loan spells without much success. But even if Reinier has flamed out, a two-for-three record isn’t bad at all, especially when both Vini and Rodrygo have €150 and €100 million current transfer values, per Transfermarkt’s calculations. 

Endrick might pass all three of his compatriots in a Real Madrid shirt. 

Here’s a list of Endrick’s notable achievements at the ripe old age of 17: win the illustrious Montaigu youth tournament with Brazil, score in the Montaigu tournament final against Argentina, make his club debut with Palmeiras at 16 years and 2 months old, score his first senior goal a month later and become the youngest player to earn a call-up to the senior Brazilian team since the original Ronaldo. You know, the guy with the funny haircut? He happened to score 62 goals in 99 games for Brazil.

Endrick’s already working on that record. Last week, he scored in two international friendlies against England and Spain, coming off the bench in both matches. His goal against the Three Lions was the match-winner, as he crashed the England goal alongside none other than future teammate Vini to secure a late lead. 

And just three days later, Endrick scored his goal against Spain in his future home stadium, the Santiago Bernabéu. 

His goal against La Furia Roja required a little more skill than his strike on English soil. A Brazilian corner kick deflected around the Spanish penalty area, eventually falling to Endrick about 16 yards from the goal. With the Spanish players positionally disoriented, the young forward wisely struck the ball first with his favored left foot towards the bottom left corner. It was a reasonably powerful effort and, more importantly, impeccably placed. Spanish goalkeeper Unai Simón dived for the ball, but the shot was too true.

Although most footballers are right-footed, Endrick shares a preference for his left with many of the all-time great forwards, including Lionel Messi, Diego Maradona, Johan Cruyff and, perhaps most interestingly, Alfredo Di Stéfano.

I find Di Stéfano a particularly interesting comparison to Endrick for a variety of reasons. In addition to the left-footedness, their association with Real Madrid obviously stands out. Di Stéfano hailed from Argentina and also played in Colombia, but ultimately served Real for over 10 seasons, winning eight La Liga titles and two Ballon d’Or awards. And even though the naturalized Spaniard nominally played as a forward, he was known for defensive ability and general well-roundedness. Endrick, too, wants to defend from the front and make life easier for his teammates. 

Playing for Palmeiras, the 17-year-old doesn’t just score plenty of goals — 11 in 17.3 full 90s played in the 2023 season — he also “gets stuck in,” as they say. He averages 0.79 tackles per 90 in defense, per FBref, which ranks him in the 68th percentile among his positional peers from leagues of a similar quality. If he were to contribute a similar number in Europe next season — a skill that should be more easily translatable than others, since it’s mostly effort-based — it would give Endrick about 26 more tackles across a 38-game season than Erling Haaland made in Manchester City’s title-winning 2022-23 Premier League season. Now, tackling is not everything defensively and depends heavily on a team’s tactical approach as well, but the large contrast is intriguing nonetheless. 

But Real Madrid didn’t sign Endrick for his tackling. The newly minted international goalscorer can dribble smoothly through the defenders with exceptional ball control and finish from anywhere in and around the box, including with his less-favored right foot. At the youth level, he simply made defenders look silly. When you combine his dribbling ability and ball-striking with aggressive front-foot defense and relentless pressing, you can see how Endrick is a walking nightmare for opposing defenders. 

He may not have Neymar’s tricks or Vinícius’ unstoppable burst of pace, but make no mistake: what Endrick may lack in style, he more than makes up for in substance. On the back of his efforts, the Real Madrid dynasty could continue for another decade.