Chelsea’s Estevao Willian has the pressure on his young shoulders of potentially being the next superstar out of Brazil.
The Blues have welcomed Estevao Willian, 18, into their squad for the 2025-26 season. He’s not looked out of place at Stamford Bridge either.
At the moment, the skilful right-winger is currently with his country during the international break, where he’s starting to establish himself as a regular for Brazil.
On Friday, Estevao scored twice for Brazil during their 5-0 win against South Korea in a friendly match. It was a major positive to hear Brazil manager Carlo Ancelotti praise Estevao in his post-match interview. Next, the South American giants face Japan on Tuesday.
Photo by Han Myung-Gu/Getty Images
It was the type of individual performance from Estevao against South Korea that will only add more excitement to the justified hype around him.
Brazilian newspaper Globo praised the Chelsea talent for his latest international display. They wrote in their player rating: “Estevao – 8/10. The youngster put in a great performance, scoring two goals. In the first, he read the game well and moved well, infiltrating the box behind the defence. In the second, he was focused, pressing, winning the ball back, and finishing. He also delivered passes and crosses.”
Photo by Han Myung-Gu/Getty ImagesPedro Neto should be on alert
If Estevao continues to improve at this rapid rate, we don’t think it will be too long before he’s pushing to start every Chelsea fixture on the right wing.
Therefore, Blues winger Pedro Neto may need to respond. The 25-year-old attacker has proven he can operate successfully from the right or left, but he may need to get more comfortable playing the latter.
There’s an argument to be made that left-footed Neto is at his very best cutting infield from the right wing, which leaves Chelsea boss Enzo Maresca with a potential selection headache.
Last month, Chelsea supporters enjoyed Neto’s display on the left wing during a performance for Portugal. Could we see him playing there more often this season? If that’s the case, he could take minutes away from teammates Alejandro Garnacho and Jamie Gittens.