A Brazilian Soccer Giant Is Running a Player Farm in Eastern Europe
Rio club Fluminense is using a hook-up in Slovakia to nurture players for the lucrative European leagues.
Willian Henrique dos Santos ( No. 16, center-right) and other Brazilian players of Slovakian football club FC STK Samorin in action against players with Hungarian football club MTE Mosonmagyarovar, during a friendly soccer match.
Photographer: Lisi Niesner/Bloomberg
Pawing at his cheek, mouth and nose, Brazilian teenager Willian Henrique dos Santos complains that he’s lost all sensation in the right side of his face.
Away from home for the first time, the slight, fast attacker had just finished a tune-up game for his new soccer team. After swapping a steamy Latin summer for a icy Central European winter, the January afternoon in Hungary is the toughest—and definitely the coldest—stage of his career so far. It will end, he hopes, somewhere more glamorous.