He won Carlo Ancelotti’s admiration in 95 minutes… Brazil’s new star is set to shine at the World Cup

15-year-old Danilo Santos’s thoughts are rapidly accelerating. Emotions flow in all directions. Disappointment, anger, sadness. But also uncertainty and guilt. Danilo has just been kicked out of the Bahia Football Academy, a club where he has been playing since the age of seven.

Danilo is from a poor family. So poor that his father had to take out loans for his education. So, it is not surprising that after the conversation in Bahia where he received the bad news, he was overwhelmed by the feeling of guilt. The young talent feels so defeated that he suddenly stops playing the game he loves so much.

Because really, it’s probably not good enough. Maybe he can’t stand the tremendous pressure. Diego Freitas takes care of the young player. Freitas is a soccer coach and is also part of the project “Os Diguinos da Paul”, a project that uses football to help disadvantaged youth.

“I told him then that it was his family’s dream for him to help them in football,” he recalled in an interview. The Athletic. Freitas eventually guided Danilo to a coaching stint at Brazilian second-tier club Cajazeras. There he appeared on the radar of Palmeiras.

“No one in Bahia appreciated his talent,” sighs Freitas. “But luckily Palmeiras, 1,600 kilometers away, saw his potential, he just had to leave the state to pursue his dream.”

This dream of his has now come true. When Carlo Ancelotti announced the 26 names that will take Brazil to the World Cup, and the selection of Neymar in particular caught the eye, Danilo Santos was a name that could have raised some questions here and there, just like Ancelotti. So who is Danilo, the 25-year-old from Botafogo who has only been called up once, four years ago?

Danilo is a modern midfielder who can play in 6, 8 and 10 positions. As tireless as he is, it’s no wonder he credits N’Golo Kante as his biggest inspiration. “I still remember a game when Danilo was 13,” Freitas proves his greatest strength with an anecdote.

“The game ended in a tie, so we had to go to extra time. Danilo played very well and had two assists in overtime. His father was begging me to take him off the field because he was so tired. But Danilo didn’t want to. After the game, he had to help his son off the field because he no longer had enough strength to walk.”

Danilo is a late bloomer by Brazilian standards compared to, say, Neymar, Vinicius Junior and Endric. What he needed as a teenager was a coach who believed in him and saw what Baia had missed. He found it in Wanderlei Luxemburgo.

Luxemburgo, who was previously the head coach of Real Madrid, led Palmeiras in 2020. “Do you know how I discovered Danilo?” in an interview with, he tells his story “Jovem Pan“. “During the meeting of the U20 national team and reserves, I was immediately noticed by a left-handed young man who dribbled the ball all over the field.”

“One thing particularly caught my attention. he never passed the ball sideways or backwards, only passed it forward. He controlled the ball and accelerated the game. I thought. Who is this player? So I inquired about him. They told me he plays sometimes, but he comes after Patrick De Paula.”

“I answered. Behind Patrick? It’s better than him. People thought I was crazy because Patrick was considered the star of the team. But I made sure of it.” Luxembourg moved the midfielder to the first team almost immediately, gradually giving him his chance.

“I realized that he has a huge potential. I said at the time that Brazil produce very few midfielders with the quality needed to go to the World Cup. But Danilo had strength, character and football intelligence. He showed that he can go very far.”

Under the leadership of the next coach, Abel Ferreira, Danilo made his real breakthrough. The Portuguese coach dared to bet on Danilo. With Danilo as the backbone of the team, Ferreira’s Palmeiras developed into one of the best teams in recent Brazilian history.

Having won two Copa Libertadores (the South American version of the Champions League), the league title, the Copa do Brasil, the Copa América and the Liga São Paulo, Palmeiras’ trophy cabinet was impressively full. Moreover, Danilo was invited to the Brazilian national team for the first time. It was a short training experience as he did not participate in any matches.

However, his excellent form has attracted attention in Europe. In the end, it was Nottingham Forest who won the race for his coveted signature. to make The Tricky Trees Club“Danilo is the 6th most expensive player that Palmeiras has ever sold, after paying 20 million euros.

Danilo quickly became popular in Nottingham as well, among the coaches, his teammates as well as the fans. This playful player is often sung to the tune of “Gold” by Spandau Ballets. Danilo-O eagerly accepts the song. “When the fans started singing that song, I didn’t know it. But now I play it all the time in my car. I think it’s a really fun song. It makes me feel at home here.”

To make matters more painful, in 2024, in the seventh minute of the brand new Premier League season, Danilo suffered a horrific ankle fracture. It was a grim sight as large pieces of cloth were carried onto the pitch to hide the severity of the injury. Danilo lost his place at Forest and went a different way.

He returned to his homeland, Botafogo. It seems a slightly questionable transfer given the relationship between club owners John Textor and Evangelos Marinakis. The two have four clubs (Botafogo, Lyon, Nottingham Forest and Olympiacos respectively) that have traded nine players in three years.

But there was a clear reason for Danilo’s return to Brazil. “It was very difficult because I didn’t want to leave at all,” he said GE:. “I’m at the age where I want to play in Europe, but because of a serious injury I lost my place.”

“I really wanted to change things with Forest, but there are things you can’t control in football. “I was also desperate to get into the World Cup and to be eligible I had to get game time.”

At that time, Davide Ancelotti was working as a coach at Botafogo. “He called me asking me to join Botafogo and said that we will make history together,” Danilo recalled. UOL:. The partnership between the two lasted only one season, one year, when the midfielder suffered a hamstring injury.

But this season, under a different coach, Danilo is showing his best form. He has never had such a productive year. after twelve matches, the midfielder became the author of nine goals and two assists. That got him drafted in March, nearly four years after his last draft For the Brazilian national teamnew call

Now from Carlo Ancelotti, the father of his former coach at Botafogo. “First it was the boy, now it’s the father’s turn,” laughs Danilo. “The frame has completely turned.” This time Ancelotti allowed him to play. After coming off a fine substitute against France on his debut, he was allowed to shine from the start against Croatia.

When the end of the first half was approaching, the moment that Danilo dreamed of came. After a brilliant move from Vinicius Junior, he brilliantly curled the ball into the top corner. Two months later, he is waiting in the presence of his family, full of tension. Will Ancelotti take Brazil to the World Cup after his first 95 minutes?

Yes, of course. Danilo cries. And now, too, emotions overwhelm him again. But uncertainty has given way to pride. “During the 2010 World Cup, I painted the streets and raised flags.” Now he will go there himself.