{"id":245755,"date":"2025-10-23T09:45:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-23T09:45:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/245755\/"},"modified":"2025-10-23T09:45:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-23T09:45:07","slug":"estevao-stars-in-champions-league-for-chelsea-dreamt-of-this","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/245755\/","title":{"rendered":"Est\u00eav\u00e3o stars in Champions League for Chelsea: &#8216;Dreamt of this&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Oct 23, 2025, 04:49 AM ET<\/p>\n<p>Teenage winger <a data-player-guid=\"8e1c5222-3aa2-3284-8ed7-277cf69dcd41\" href=\"http:\/\/espn.com\/soccer\/player\/_\/id\/376481\/estevao\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Est\u00eav\u00e3o<\/a> has said he feels fulfilled after realising his long-time dream of scoring his first Champions League goal.<\/p>\n<p>Est\u00eav\u00e3o, 18, became <a data-clubhouse-guid=\"c43a00b9-2826-72b3-77a0-62730abc936e\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/soccer\/team?id=363\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Chelsea<\/a>&#8216;s youngest-ever scorer in Europe&#8217;s elite club competition when he converted a penalty in his team&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/football\/report\/_\/gameId\/757701\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">5-1 win<\/a> over 10-man Ajax on Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m so happy with this first Champions League goal,&#8221; Est\u00eav\u00e3o told TNT Sport.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m so happy, there&#8217;s no other way to describe it. I dreamed about this moment for a long time, and thank God it&#8217;s here. I feel so fulfilled and happy.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Chelsea coach Enzo Maresca handed Est\u00eav\u00e3o his first Champions League start on Wednesday with the Blues&#8217; summer signing having come off the bench in the 1-0 win over <a data-clubhouse-guid=\"c0d080f4-ddad-14be-1498-51f86a0f24fa\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/soccer\/team?id=1929\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Benfica<\/a> and the 3-1 loss at <a data-clubhouse-guid=\"25b5e432-d3d2-939f-f73b-6e531a6fbd91\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/soccer\/team?id=132\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Bayern Munich<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;When I found out that I would be playing [from the start], I didn&#8217;t even sleep in the afternoon,&#8221; Est\u00eav\u00e3o said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I usually sleep in the afternoon to be in good shape, but the anxiety got the best of me and I couldn&#8217;t even sleep. I&#8217;m thrilled to be playing for Chelsea, having opportunities, knowing that the coach trusts me, I&#8217;m very happy.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Est\u00eav\u00e3o praised teammate <a data-player-guid=\"b6765ac7-63b2-227c-12e8-f6342bf9405c\" href=\"http:\/\/espn.com\/soccer\/player\/_\/id\/285450\/enzo-fernandez\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Enzo Fern\u00e1ndez<\/a> for his generosity in allowing him to take Chelsea&#8217;s second penalty of the night, which the Brazilian had earned.<\/p>\n<p>With <a data-player-guid=\"6db4c779-7f2c-07f7-14ce-64d74f7d7fad\" href=\"http:\/\/espn.com\/soccer\/player\/_\/id\/296395\/cole-palmer\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Cole Palmer<\/a> still out injured, Fernandez is Chelsea&#8217;s designated penalty taker and had scored his team&#8217;s third goal from the penalty spot.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Enzo [Fern\u00e1ndez] is a fantastic guy,&#8221; Est\u00eav\u00e3o said. &#8220;He gave me the opportunity to take the penalty. I didn&#8217;t expect him to let me take it because he had scored the first one, I thought, &#8216;He&#8217;s going to want another one.&#8217; But I looked at him, he gave me the ball, and I was very happy.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This really reflects our group, very united, very hard-working, we help each other. I&#8217;m very happy to have helped Chelsea.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Maresca said after the game he feels &#8220;lucky&#8221; to manage Est\u00eav\u00e3o and thinks the Brazilian teenager could follow in the footsteps of Palmer to excel in the Chelsea first team.<\/p>\n<p>Est\u00eav\u00e3o, who moved to Chelsea in the summer in an initial <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/football\/story\/_\/id\/40408958\/chelsea-agree-transfer-teenage-forward-estevao-willian\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">\u00a329 million ($39m) transfer<\/a> from Palmeiras, said he believes he is in the right environment to continue growing.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m very grateful for what Chelsea is doing on an off the pitch to make me feel at home,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; Match report: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/football\/report\/_\/gameId\/757701\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Chelsea teens put on show in 5-goal night to beat Ajax<\/a><br \/>&#8211; Transfer rumours, news: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/football\/story\/_\/id\/46692909\/transfer-rumors-news-chelsea-loan-barcelona-goalkeeper-marc-andre-ter-stegen\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Chelsea to loan Barcelona&#8217;s Ter Stegen?<\/a><br \/>&#8211; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/football\/story\/_\/id\/46688677\/chelsea-lucky-record-breaking-estevao\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Chelsea &#8216;lucky&#8217; to have record-breaking Est\u00eav\u00e3o<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I feel at home, happy, supported. I&#8217;m happy with the help of the coach, the coaching staff, my teammates, the club executives, who all have helped me adapt as fast as possible.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Est\u00eav\u00e3o, who scored his first goal for <a data-clubhouse-guid=\"2a051c42-4444-8263-799a-6cdd866bd8f7\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/soccer\/team?id=205\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Brazil<\/a> in a 3-0 win against <a data-clubhouse-guid=\"88465ae4-4f02-be5f-354a-3409021c5a0c\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/soccer\/team?id=207\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Chile<\/a> in last month&#8217;s World Cup qualifier, knows he has plenty of work to do if he is to fulfil another dream, that of playing at the 2026 World Cup.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Of course it&#8217;s the aim and dream of every player to represent your country in the World Cup,&#8221; he said. &#8220;I&#8217;m working hard here, fighting every day. I&#8217;m definitely going to work hard.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Oct 23, 2025, 04:49 AM ET Teenage winger Est\u00eav\u00e3o has said he feels fulfilled after realising his long-time&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":245756,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[403,99],"class_list":["post-245755","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245755","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=245755"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245755\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/245756"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=245755"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=245755"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=245755"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}