A storm was swirling around Old Trafford, Senne Lammens had been left behind and the angle had all but closed.
Evanilson has been drawing perfect lines since he was a child in Fortaleza in Brazil’s Northeast region, pausing cartoons on the television to copy them on to paper. Last Sunday he drew one more – arcing violently into the Manchester United net.
‘When I thought about going past the goalkeeper, I just took a chance,’ he tells Daily Mail Sport. ‘It was very windy, too. Maybe the wind helped, but I went for the perfect angle there. I managed to score that goal, which was very difficult, but it was beautiful.’
The goal in question capped a 3-0 win, Bournemouth‘s fourth in a row without conceding and the third time in four seasons they’d won at Old Trafford by that scoreline. Three days earlier, Evanilson’s flicked header led to the penalty that kickstarted a 3-0 win over AC Milan in the Europa League.
In 2008, Bournemouth began a season in the fourth tier with a 17-point deduction. Now they are in Europe for the first time, at a stadium that holds about 12,400, in red and black stripes borrowed from Milan more than 50 years ago.
‘For our club, for all the players, beating two world giants is always very special,’ says Evanilson, 27. ‘A very important week for us. I think we’re quite confident for the rest of the season. It helped us a lot.’
Evanilson goes around Manchester United goalkeeper Senne Lammens…
…arcs an audacious effort into the top corner to make it 3-0 to Bournemouth…
…and celebrates another milestone win for the club in what was surely the greatest week in its history
The strike at Old Trafford was Evanilson’s fourth in five games, a week after his 100th career goal against Sunderland. Asked to give it a mark out of five, he goes further.
‘For me, this is one of the most beautiful,’ he says. ‘Even more so because of the size of the game, against United, away from home, at Old Trafford. That pushes the score even higher.’
The week could get better still. Carlo Ancelotti names his Brazil squad on Thursday, and Evanilson, whose two caps for his country came in 2024, has never been called up by the Italian. With Chelsea No9 Joao Pedro injured, Brentford’s Igor Thiago out of form and Richarlison out of favour at Tottenham, will this be Evanilson’s time?
‘Of course, I’m always thinking about the national team,’ he says. ‘I think it’s the hunger of every player, to always be wearing the biggest shirt of all national teams. My expectation is high. I hope to be able to be there. If not, keep working, keep doing my part. Who knows, one day.’
Not long ago, a week like this looked a distant prospect. Andoni Iraola left in the summer after taking Bournemouth to sixth place and a first European qualification. His successor, Marco Rose, took seven league games to get his first win, after a 5-1 defeat at Chelsea on October 10 left his side 17th.
Under Rose, Evanilson presses from the front and has at times dropped behind another striker. He has four goals and four assists in 11 games in the Premier League and Europa League.
‘For me, there’s no such thing as a lost ball,’ he says. ‘I’m always running, making movements up front. I work for the team. The manager has fitted us well into this team, and now we know what he really wants from us. He wants mobility up front, he wants us to press high. It’s no coincidence that we won these last four games, and won well, without conceding.’
Iraola, now at Liverpool, taught Evanilson about life in the Premier League after he joined for a club-record £40million from Porto two years ago.
Andoni Iraola, now at Liverpool, taught Evanilson about life in the Premier League after he joined for a club-record £40million from Porto two years ago
Marco Rose, Iraola’s successor, has set Evanilson a target of 15 to 20 goals this season
Evanilson reacts to Justin Kluivert opening the scoring against AC Milan last week, kickstarting a historic 3-0 win for the Cherries
‘He helped me a lot to adapt to English football, which is totally different,’ says Evanilson. ‘With this intensity, he helped me a lot with pressing, with making movements to try to break down my opponent. He’s Spanish, and I don’t speak fluent English, but he spoke to me in Spanish. I’m very grateful to him.’
Rose has needed time too.
‘At the start it’s always difficult, even for him, to adapt to English football,’ Evanilson says. ‘In some games he tells us to do certain things and we don’t do them, and we suffer for it. He knows what he’s doing, he plans the games very well, and the intensity on the pitch is also very similar to Iraola’s. He trusts me a lot.’
The German has said Evanilson can score 15 to 20 goals this season, after 18 in his first two campaigns combined.
‘The expectation he has is very high,’ says Evanilson. ‘I’m sure more chances will keep coming. I have to be there, I have to be focused to convert them.’
Evanilson’s compatriot Rayan also scored at Old Trafford, his first league goal of the season. The 20-year-old joined from Vasco da Gama in January in a deal worth an initial £24.7m and started for Brazil at the World Cup.
‘I already knew the quality he had as a player, but I didn’t know him as a person,’ says Evanilson. ‘He’s an impeccable lad, a good guy. We’re always together here at the club. He’s a player with a lot of strength, explosiveness, and he also has that nose for goal. Since he arrived, I’ve tried to help him so he could adapt faster.’
At Porto, Evanilson was the one being helped. Having joined for around £8m in 2020 from Fluminense, he spent much of his first year in Portugal with the B team. Pepe, the former Real Madrid centre back, kept him going.
Legendary former Real Madrid centre back Pepe (centre) was the guiding light for Evanilson (left) when his Porto career took a while to get going
But eventually the striker found his place and scored 60 goals in 154 Porto appearances, earning him his move to the Premier League
‘Love him, love him,’ he says of Pepe. ‘He was always talking to me. He’d say: “Calm down, your time will come, the coach really likes you.” Sometimes I’d get sad. I’d been signed and I was playing for Porto B.’
Porto won the league and cup double the following season, and Evanilson scored 21 goals in all competitions. Two years later he was on his way to England.
Bournemouth is a very long way from home, but he had learned about distance long before, leaving Fortaleza for Fluminense in Rio de Janeiro – 1,600 miles and a day and a half’s drive away at the opposite tip of Brazil.
‘It’s very hard for us to leave the Northeast,’ he says. ‘When I left there at 13, I was a kid, I left on my own. Sometimes I wanted to go back.
‘And my mother told me all the time: “If you want to be a footballer, you have to face reality, you have to keep going. You’re a good player, but this part off the pitch, you have to overcome it.”‘
Jose Neto, the coach who took him to Rio, has said the boy promised to draw his mother, Madalena, every day to ease the homesickness. She died suddenly in 2017 when Evanilson was in the Fluminense youth academy, and he thought about giving up football.
‘I’d like her to be living all of this that I’ve been through, from when I left Fortaleza to where I am now,’ he says. ‘I’m sure she’s proud. The only thing I’d really like is for her to be able to be here, living it and watching me play in the Premier League.’
The drawing never stopped. These days he does it with his daughter, Maria Alice.
Bournemouth team-mate and compatriot Rayan has nailed down a place in the Brazil starting XI – now Evanilson wants to follow suit
Evanilson moved more than 1,600 miles from his home city of Fortaleza to join the Fluminense academy in Rio de Janeiro
‘Whenever I’m at home with her, we try to do some drawing,’ he says. ‘It makes me relax, it makes me forget some problems. And it’s really nice to know that she likes it too.’
Home in Bournemouth also means Ola Brasil, a small shop on Wimborne Road whose owner delivered rice, beans, chicken and farofa, a toasted cassava flour, to the family’s hotel when they arrived.
‘That food every Brazilian loves, when you go a while without eating it, you even feel weak,’ he says.
It is the only place he can find Brazilian-style Maria biscuits.
‘I always buy them,’ he says. ‘My one-year-old son only eats these Maria biscuits. He’s crazy about them.’
He has always lived by the sea, in Fortaleza, Rio, Porto and now Dorset, where the water is a bit different.
‘It’s impossible to go in because of the cold water. Very, very cold,’ he says.
The sea he grew up with is in Brazil’s Northeast, a region of nine states along the Atlantic. Fortaleza, with about 2.6million people, is its biggest city. Evanilson still goes back with his family.
Evanilson has two Brazil caps to his name, and is hoping to win his first call-up under Carlo Ancelotti this week
‘In summer (Bournemouth) is incredible, it gets up to 35 degrees, and it’s nice. Sometimes, in summer, you can feel like you’re in Brazil, in our Northeast’
‘Our Northeast is incredible, very beautiful,’ he says. ‘Even though it’s very hot, it’s very beautiful, it’s perfect, it has beautiful beaches. I loved living there. Whenever I go to Fortaleza, I always want to be on the beach. Even the water temperature helps you relax.
‘The town here is very good too. In summer, it’s a really hot town. Lots of people from other cities in England come to spend the summer here. The beaches are always full, the streets packed, and the heat here is similar too.’
On the hottest days, the distance to his homeland shrinks.
‘In summer it’s incredible, it gets up to 35°C, and it’s nice. Sometimes, in summer, you can feel like you’re in Brazil, in our Northeast.’
