Pato and Ganso: The Unfulfilled Brazilian Prodigies Seeking New Life in La Liga

Act 1: It’s late, and the Santiago Bernabeu is tense. With one already to his name, Alexandre Pato is free and Real Madrid can’t react. Drawn to the ball, Sergio Ramos and Pepe are out of the picture, and Marcelo is stranded, too. The ball loops to Pato. Pato scores. 

Act 2: The Camp Nou glistens under the lights, many still taking their seats as the opening whistle blows. Pato picks the ball up in the centre circle. He skips past Barcelona’s Javier Mascherano and storms beyond Sergio Busquets. Pato is in. Pato scores. 

Premonitions? Not at all. 

These goals have already been scored.  

Now Villarreal need him to score them again.

Having signed at El Madrigal this summer, Pato is entering perhaps the most important season of his career. Most are aware of the prodigy-turned-what-if theme of his story, the sense of a footballing journey split in two. But away from the bright lights of Milan and the San Siro, free from the double-edged hype machine of his native country, the Brazilian has a chance at new life on the lightly populated coast north of Valencia. 

“Succeeding at Villarreal is a beautiful challenge for me,” he said earlier this month when presented by his new club in front of over a thousand fans. “For me it is very important to have this opportunity. I am fully focused on being able to play again at the highest level.”

The keyword? “Again.”

From Pato, this was a subtle admission that everything hasn’t gone the way it could have; or perhaps, should have. Almost a decade ago, he was signing with the defending European champions AC Milan from Internacional as one of the hottest commodities in the game, quickly enjoying a breakout period at the pinnacle of the continent. 

To Pato, there was an alluring, graceful power. Though so young at the time, he was capable of the remarkable, and that was complemented by a smoothness in his movement, the visuals leaving the impression of a striker who would become deadly. 

But somewhere along the line, it went wrong: injuries, distractions, neglect, naivety. At Milan, Pato’s path became wayward. His body grew fragile, a resilience missing. His work ethic was questioned. His life away from the pitch became the focus.

“It became more common to see Pato in the style or gossip pages than in the sports section,” wrote South American football expert Tim Vickery for Bleacher Report in January. 

The second coming of #Pato: Can Brazil’s enigma shine again at #CFC? | @Tim_Vickery https://t.co/6VFk2hPKSc pic.twitter.com/7a6LFo9q2E

— Bleacher Report UK (@br_uk) January 28, 2016

This has been the knock on Pato. He’s viewed as a prodigious talent who hasn’t been able to pair his gifts with the unrelenting professionalism that defines those who reach the top. 

From Milan, Pato returned to Brazil to sign with Corinthians, the club at which a sideways step became a backward one. 

“At that time [when we signed him in 2013] he was everything we wanted in an athlete: ideal age, he was from here, he had played in Europe, he was on the Selecao,” Corinthians president Roberto de Andrade told ESPN last year.

It didn’t work out, though. Pato never fulfilled expectations, his horrible penalty miss against Gremio damaged his relationship with fans and he spent a loan spell at Sao Paulo at Corinthians’ expense. In short, it wasn’t the trampoline back to Europe’s top shelf that it was meant to …

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