Richarlison: ‘I used to wear a Neymar shirt and copy his hair – now we’re friends’ Exclusive interview: Everton forward tells i about growing up around drugs and guns, playing with his idols and his new life on Merseyside

By Fred Caldeira and Simon Hart

Richarlison is leaning against the pool table in his games room. A Space Invaders machine stands beside the wall. On a windowsill is his Watford Young Player of the Year award for 2017-18. Next to it, a Man of the Match trophy from his two-goal Everton debut at Wolverhampton Wanderers.

It is not any of his football feats – not even his winner for Brazil against Cameroon last week – that are currently under discussion, though. Rather, we are talking about the pool competition that took place here the day before. “I’m the champion of our pool tournaments,” he grins. Looking over to Renato Velasco, his agent and father figure, he adds: “He got knocked out in the first round.”

Welcome to Richarlison’s world. We are here, in the rented house on the outskirts of Liverpool that he calls home. Here to gain an insight into what makes this young Brazilian footballer tick. Starting, it seems, with a taste of home. “Yesterday there were 15 people here,” says Renato, taking over. “We had a party – a pool tournament and a bit of a barbecue. We like to bring Brazil here.”

For all of Everton manager Marco Silva’s astute mentoring and playmaker Gylfi Sigurdsson’s cute passing, the value of the domestic bubble that Renato and his wife Geovana have built for Richarlison cannot be underestimated when assessing the 21-year-old’s impact on Merseyside. This is a player ignored by every club in Brazil’s top two divisions until he was 17, when Renato helped him reach the first rung on the ladder at second-tier side América-MG. They have been together ever since.

‘On my own, I’d be in difficulty’

“We have many greedy agents in Brazil but he’s always helping me to develop my career,” says Richarlison. “It’s not every agent that would give up a comfortable life in Rio by the beach to live here in the English cold. I’m really thankful to him and his wife. On my own, I’d be in difficulty with my lack of English and cooking skills. Geovana is the one that cleans my mess. I can only just cook a fried egg.”

Thanks to Geovana there are his favourite bean stews which draw Yerry Mina, Everton’s Colombian defender, round too. “He’s lived in Brazil for two years, so he’s used to it.” Also here, providing support, is Pedro, an old friend from home to whom Richarlison feels a debt of gratitude. It was Pedro who provided the boots he wore on his successful trial for América. “He lent me his boots to do this trial – they were an odd pair, one pink and the other blue. People were looking at me but I didn’t care.”

According to Renato, this loyalty is a recurring theme with Richarlison, from the first hairdresser he found in England, whom he pays to travel up to Liverpool, to Marco Silva, the manager who took him first to Watford for £11m, and then Everton in a £40m deal 12 months later. “He was all set to join Ajax when Marco Silva came in,” says Renato of that first move. “If a manager recognises his value and gives him opportunities, Richarlison will give his life for this man.”

A different life

Richarlison is living a life he did not dream of as a boy in Rubio, a “dangerous neighbourhood” in Nova Venézia, his home town. “I could see the criminal activities from my window and some dealers would even hide drugs in my garden. What could I do about it? Call the police? If so, the criminals would do something bad to me or my family. Some of them were my friends and we used to hang around together – we’d go on long walks to a waterfall a few kilometres away to cool off. They were involved with drugs and guns, but I never touched it.” As a boy, he sought other ways of earning extra money for his family – not entirely successfully. “My auntie had a shop and once, she gave me 30 ice lollies to sell [to motorists] but I ended up eating around 12 of them,” he smiles.

Even for Brazilians, Richarlison’s rags-to-riches trajectory appears extraordinary. As he acknowledges: “Five years ago I was in my city wearing Neymar’s shirt, copying his hairstyle and now I’m playing beside him with Brazil. I have a shirt which he’s signed which I’m going to frame and put on my wall. I told Neymar about being a big fan of his and he just laughed. He likes me as a friend and a player.”

The sudden elevation to wealth and opportunity has provided other perks. Both his father, Antônio Marcos, and his uncle, Elton (named, indeed, after Elton John) were talented footballers but failed to find a route out of their home state, Espírito Santo.

“My father used to live on another man’s land and we had just a little part of it to ourselves,” he says. “There were two dams there for fishing and we couldn’t use the upper one. One Christmas I went fishing on the upper dam [but] the owner caught me. He went to my dad’s house and humiliated him in front of our whole family. I went off and cried in my bedroom and thought about giving him a better life with a new house. And I’ve been able to do it.”

Shy side

There is an unexpected, and endearing, shyness about Richarlison in person; a reminder this 21-year-old in the black hoodie, ripped, knee-length jeans and flip-flops is a long way from home. Initially he offers little eye contact; gradually the sheepish smiles come. And he looks with genuine curiosity at an Everton oral history book that i have brought along as a gift – even pointing to the side-stripe shaved into his hair when looking at Dixie Dean’s side-parting on the front cover.

According to Renato, there are two Richarlisons. “He doesn’t drink. He doesn’t have tattoos. He doesn’t have earrings. To get him to do an interview I have to ask him 10 times. He’s very shy and doesn’t talk much and it seems like when he goes on the pitch he leaves behind that Richarlison and another person comes out. When he loses he’ll spend three days thinking about it.” At Watford, Renato elaborates, he refused to attend a monthly team dinner because he was still smarting from a 6-0 loss to Manchester City. “I called one of the directors and he had to convince him to go,” adds Renato. “Sometimes he’ll say, ‘Oh today I was crap’. He’s very self-critical.”

“I got really upset with my performance in the last match [against Cardiff City],” Richarlison adds by way of agreement. He will hope for better on Sunday against a Liverpool side Everton last beat in 2010, when he was still at school. “I was 13 and playing for my school team. I remember loads of scouts from Vasco, Flamengo, Cruzeiro promising to call me but they never did. That was my life in Nova Venécia in 2010, trying to fight for my future. I wouldn’t have even thought about playing in one of the biggest derbies in the world.”