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Willian: Chelsea’s standout in an otherwise dismal season

By on January 3, 2016

Willian Borges da Silva was nine during the 1998 World Cup. The Brazilian boy lived in Ribeirao Pires, a small city in Sao Paulo, where his father Severinho sold car parts and his mother also worked to support Willian and his sister. Willian was captivated by the tournament and wanted to be like Brazilian legend Ronaldo. “Or Zidane,” he added in an interview with the Daily Mail.

Like many young players, the aspiring footballer took inspiration from a host of international stars — he told Brazilian magazine Lance! that he also supported Juninho Pernambucano, David Beckham, Ronaldinho Gaúcho and even Andrea Pirlo. Yet his biggest idol lived much closer to home.

Willian’s hero was Marcelinho Caricoa, described as the greatest player ever to appear for Brazilian powerhouse Corinthians. Marcelinho’s career took an odd path; the attacking midfielder never settled in anywhere but had multiple short, unsuccessful stints across Europe and Asia, cast amid three different spells at Corinthians and terms at Flamengo, Santos, and Vasco de Gama. Neither did he succeed for Brazil’s national team, only earning three caps.

The Brazilian was famous for multiple high-profile disputes with fellow teammates and coaches, but his masterful technical ability and penchant for lovely free-kicks was never in doubt. With little to no run-up, Marcelinho could whip free-kicks into the upper ninety from anywhere ranging from twenty to thirty-five yards out, scored directly from corners on multiple occasions and also at the end of long, mazy runs. In happier days, his celebrations were overly jubilant while during more tense times he might hardly celebrate at all.

A young Willian set out to master his set piece technique and he continues work to at it every day. “This is an outcome of my day-by-day training. I take five or six free-kicks from the same place by the end of every training,” he said of his recent string of set-piece goals in a recent interview with Lance! magazine.

Willian joined Corinthians’ youth setup the year of the ’98 World Cup, and a year later moved closer to the club to pursue a career in football. “Thanks to God everything turned out well for me and I have managed to make it as a professional,” he told the Daily Mail a few months ago. Outside of football, he admitted he was a “terrible” student and his only other real passion was music. He plays the Pandiero, a hand drum dubbed Brazil’s unofficial national instrument.

On the pitch, Willian exhibits the flair his country is famous for and stands out with his trademark Afro (“when I wake up, I have ten minutes in front of the mirror to do it lie that, but I like it,” he laughed in an interview with Copa 90) and celebrated free-kicks. In 2006, he broke into Corinthians’ senior team and moved to Turkey shortly thereafter to join Shakhtar Donestk. He was nineteen and the transition was tough.

“For the first six months I was on my own,” he said. “It was only later my family joined me.

“It was difficult to leave Brazil and go somewhere so different.

“The weather took some getting used to — minus 20, minus 25. But it was the kind of experience you can only gain from.”

Willian became a pivotal part of Shakhtar’s UEFA Cup-winning team towards his latter days in Turkey and was picked up by Anzhi Makhachkala for a fee in the region of £30 million in 2013. The Brazilian was only in Russia for six months before the club’s billionaire owners ended their cash-happy reign the following summer with a mass release of their squad, but Willian took the opportunity to earn a well-deserved payoff for his family back in Brazil.

His next move took just as much guts, too. Liverpool courted Willian over the summer of 2013, but Tottenham Hotspur moved quicker to fly the midfielder out to London for a medical and contract negotiations. Willian was all set to join Spurs, but Chelsea infamously hijacked the deal at the last moment with a call from Roman Abrahmovic. With that, Willian was off to Stamford Bridge, where he penned a five-year-contract.

After an initially slow start to life in England, Willian soon became a key part of Jose Mourinho’s title-winning team in the 2014/15 season and only Eden Hazard made more appearances that year. The twenty-seven-year-old fit right into Mourinho’s team vision.

Chelsea fans soon began to chant: “The s**** from Spurs, They bought his flight, But Willian, he saw the light.” Speaking to Copa 90, Willian appeared to quietly enjoy the song, although he’s far too polite to trash Tottenham openly.

This season, Willian made another step up in his contribution to the club, offering a rare glimmer of hope in Chelsea’s poor run of form. His five goals carried Chelsea through the Champions League group stages and he has led the club with three assists and also pitched in three goals in the league.

As Chelsea’s woes deepened, Willian’s stock only grew with multiple game-winning goals from free-kicks. He has scored eight goals so far this season, the same number as his past two seasons combined. His stock as never been higher on the pitch.

Off the pitch, Willian cuts a much less flashy figure, appearing instead as a soft-spoken family-man. He remains slightly shy in interviews, perhaps down to a lack of confidence in his growing English vocabulary, but across a range of both post-match and feature interviews, Willian always says the right things. That he enjoys the recognition he has gotten this season but is simply focused on bringing the team forward. Even towards the latter end of Jose Mourinho’s turbulent tenure, Willian only portrayed a picture of team unity and backing for their manager, or simply didn’t say much at all. Outwardly, he’s an introverted character.

Yet he’s never stood out more as a footballer. Through multiple controversial moves and the ups and downs of his career, Willian maintained: “I don’t have any regrets about my career so far.” Now his goal is to keep his newfound stardom firmly within his grasp and enter the picture for Brazil’s national team.

Photo credit: Aleksandr Osipov, via Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0)

About Alex Morgan

Alex Morgan, founder of Football Every Day, lives and breaths football from the West Coast of the United States in California. Aside from founding Football Every Day in January of 2013, Alex has also launched his own journalism career and hopes to help others do the same with FBED. He covers the San Jose Earthquakes as a beat reporter for QuakesTalk.com and his work has also been featured in the BBC's Match of the Day Magazine.