Liverpool reportedly want to bring Sao Paulo’s Gustavo Maia to the Premier League – though not if La Liga champions Barcelona can help it.
If you are looking to fill your football fix in these testing times, flick over to your favourite video sharing site and type ‘Gabriel Maia’ into the search bar.
We know those YouTube compilations can be a little misleading at the best of times but it takes just a few minutes of explosive dribbles, prancing pirouettes and full-back-frazzling-flicks to realise that a new Samba starlet has entered the game.
No wonder Barcelona are doing everything in their power to beat Liverpool to the signature of 19-year-old Maia, according to Marca.
However, if the Premier League leaders can rise to the challenge and snap up this teenager from under the Catalans’ nose, Maia would have pretty much the perfect mentor just a few miles down the road in Merseyside.
Long before Richarlison became Everton’s £50 million talisman, he, like Maia, was a budding left-winger jinking past defenders with ease back in Brazil.
And it is easy to forget now that the Selecao’s 2019 Copa America hero was still plying his trade out wide in the yellow of Watford just two years ago.
Richarlison has undergone a huge transformation under Marco Silva and Carlo Ancelotti, ironing out the kinks in his game to become a much more complete, consistent Premier League footballer.
Considering that Maia has started out in the same position, in the same league and with the same eye-catching skill-set, the teenager could do a lot worse than to follow in the footsteps of a man who continues to go from strength to strength in England’s north west.
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