Page 43 - Soccer360 Issue 104

BRAZILIAN
TOUCH
BY: MATTHEW NASH
“I THINK A PENALTY’S A PENALTY,’ ADDS WILLIAN. ‘IN FOOTBALL IT CANNOT CHANGE THAT MUCH.”
The Premier League has played host to a number of top Brazilians down the years. Fulham fans still get to see the genius
of 35-year-old Willian week in, week out as his love affair with English football continues in a quiet corner of west
London. FULHAM pulled off a bit of a coup when they signed Willian in September 2022. A surprise one, admittedly, as the former Brazil winger had been off the radar of English clubs since the previous August after a brief spell at the Emirates Stadium when his departure was greeted with little fanfare. He returned to Corinthians, his childhood club, and was expected to retire gracefully in São Paulo.
No chance. William fancied a third crack at the Premier League, having won two championships, the FA Cup, League Cup and Europa League in seven years in west London. Craven Cottage, with its Portuguese manager Marco Silva, seemed the ideal destination and a return to the English capital with the newly-promoted Cottagers was sealed. His performances warranted a one-year extension and he continues to light up the top flight, the trickery, neat footwork and football brain that marked his glory years at Stamford Bridge still in evidence. Thirty-five and going strong? He doesn’t look any older, and he’s certainly no slower. Age is surely just a number, even if those legs ache that little bit more now.
‘Of course, it’s different,’ he says with a wry smile as we speak on a truly wintry evening at the Cottage. ‘I’m 35 now and after the games, it takes more time to recover, that’s normal. It’s not like before when
I was 25, for example. But inside the pitch I feel good, I feel fresh to play football like before.’ Willian is among fellow Portuguese speakers
João Palhinha, Andreas Pereira, Carlos Vinicius
and Rodrigo Muniz at mid-table Fulham. Their
aim, surely, is to push for Europe in the second
half of the campaign after just failing to end a
very promising return to the Premier League with qualification for continental competition, finishing tenth. The big talking point - even more so than last term - has been the use of VAR (Video Assistant Referee). The system continues to divide fans and players, although many now want the system to be dropped after a series of questionable decisions. Willian’s side benefitted from the technology, though, as two key calls went their way in the 3-2 November home win over a Wolves team who
have a strong case to be tagged as the unluckiest
in top-flight history. The former Shakhtar Donetsk man, who won 70 caps for his country, scoring nine goals, converted two hotly-debated penalties that left Wolves, rightly, up in arms.
The question now is whether VAR is helping or hindering the English game and Willian believes
it is right to continue to use it, even if that means
a lot of waiting around as a player, often in cold conditions where the muscles can seize up while doing so. ‘I think it helps the game because the decisions sometimes the referee cannot see, so VAR helps a lot,’ he admits. ‘Sometimes it’s difficult to wait, wait, wait a lot but we know we have people outside to the pitch to decide and we have to wait for the moment to confirm the penalty.’
But what does a penalty look like in 2023-24? ‘I think a penalty’s a penalty,’ adds Willian. ‘In football it cannot change that much.’
After the departure of star striker Aleksandar Mitrovic to Saudi Pro League outfit Al-Hilal for a reported £50million in August, the Cottagers have struggled for goals. But Willian was happy to be
able to take spot-kick duties from Mitrovic.
‘It was always Marco, always before the game
he put it there in the dressing room,’ he said of
the manager’s decision to give him the team’s penalties. It’s obvious Willian had missed the competition, the vibrancy of the Premier League, before returning to London. São Paulo may be in his heart but London is arguably his footballing home after 339 games in the blue of Chelsea.
His love of the league is obvious, the need to play in tough matches week in, week out something that has stuck with him - even now at 35 and technically a veteran, he can’t speak highly enough of the nature of such a well-contested competition.
‘In the Premier League, you have to fight until
the end, until the last minute. It’s always difficult
to play in the Premier League,’ Willian says. ‘You will always have difficult moments during a game, you can’t control it 100 per cent - it’s too difficult. Impossible.’ Somehow, the wing wizard just keeps going. Fulham fans will hope he shows no signs of slowing down any time soon. Age? Who cares.
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