Chelsea head coach Enzo Maresca singled out the performance of Estêvão as the catalyst behind his side’s victory over Wolverhampton Wanderers on Saturday night, likening the summer recruit to Cole Palmer during a torrent of lofty praise.
Estêvão started the Premier League fixture on the bench, just as he has in every top-flight match since September. Still only 18 and adapting to a new climate, culture and club for the first time in his embryonic career, Maresca has prioritised caution when it comes to the Brazilian.
Yet, the few opportunities Estêvão has been afforded have seen him unmistakably shine. The former Palmeiras forward was once again instrumental against Wolves. Within 60 seconds of his substitution—which was greeted with an almighty roar from the Stamford Bridge crowd—Estêvão had jinked to the byline and drilled a low ball into the box which dropped for João Pedro to fire Chelsea into a 2–0 lead.
The goalscorer made sure everyone knew who was behind the moment of ignition by pointing to his compatriot.
“He’s doing fantastic. For this club, in the next 5–10 years, he will be a top, top player,” Maresca gushed postgame. “The reason why fans pay tickets is because they want to see players like Estêvão, like Cole [Palmer]. People are happy when they are inside the pitch. The only difference is that Estêvão arrived from Brazil, he needs a little bit to adapt.”
A recent analysis from the CIES Football Observatory valued Estêvão at €118.1 million (£103.8 million, $136.6 million), making him the second most expensive teenager in world football behind Barcelona’s Lamine Yamal.
Maresca wholeheartedly agreed with this valuation. “You can see that, absolutely,” the Italian manager said of a player who only cost Chelsea €45 million this summer. “He’s top, he’s a talent. Again, we are trying to help him to adapt and to give him the right minutes.”
Still wary of overhyping his prodigy, Maresca warned: “Slowly, slowly, for sure, it’s going to start again for us in the future. When Estêvão was inside [the pitch], the energy raised. It’s because people love that kind of player. So we are happy that he can help the team and also the fans, they can be happy.”
Maresca Responds to Chelsea Boos
The Chelsea fans spent much of Saturday’s contest decidedly unhappy as they watched their team wait 51 minutes to find the net against a Wolves side propping up the Premier League table. There were audible boos as the game remained goalless at half time.
“I was very worried before this game, because these are the worst games, these are tricky games,” Maresca fretted. “Because everyone thinks it’s going to be easy.
“I can understand that in the first half people were not happy, probably because we didn’t score—not the performance.”
Chelsea had racked up 11 shots while denying their opponents a single effort in anger over the first 45 minutes. Despite the public grumbling, Maresca wasn’t concerned. “I was very, very, very happy at half time, to be honest,” he later revealed. “The difference between half time and second half has been that we just scored goals.
“When you don’t concede nothing, nothing, nothing and you create four or five chances, you have to be clinical. We said many times—otherwise the game is always open, anything can happen.
“But fortunately in the second half we scored goals.” Thanks, once again, to Estêvão.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Enzo Maresca Values Chelsea’s New Cole Palmer at £100 Million.
