“I WANT TO BECOME AN ARSENAL LEGEND”
We find ourselves in a ’90s renaissance period right now. Retro football shirts are very much in, and bucket hats are worryingly prevalent. All we’re missing is the inevitable Oasis reunion.
Gabriel Martinelli was born nearly five years after Arsene Wenger took charge of Arsenal in 1996, but few young players have excited in a post-vintage Gunners era quite like their Brazilian forward of 2020. It’s been a mere eight months since he arrived from Ituano in his homeland, but his technical qualities and fearlessness have already earned him huge approval in north London.
It didn’t take the 18-year-old long to make his case for a place in Mikel Arteta’s starting XI; one increasingly geared towards a period of hope and rebuild at the Emirates Stadium.
Martinelli has become the first teenager to net at least 10 goals in a season for Arsenal since Nicolas Anelka, shortly after Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp hailed the youngster as “a talent of the century”.
Before joining the Londoners for £6 million last summer, the Brazilian had never made a league appearance for fourth-tier Ituano, a modest side in the state of Sao Paulo. But Martinelli’s performances in minor cup ties and youth tournaments had been enough to catch the attention of Europe’s giants.
The futsal-reared teenager was handed his professional debut when he in our maiden meeting with the wonderkid.
