Philippe Coutinho had just entered his teenage years when Barcelona playmaker Ronaldinho put on a display so mesmerising that he received a standing ovation from Real Madrid fans in the Bernabeu.
Wearing the number ten shirt and playing from the left wing, but dropping into central midfield or attacking positions as he saw fit, he controlled the game with the flair and precision with which he controlled the football.
It was a match which some Real Madrid players, especially Sergio Ramos and Michel Salgado, would rather forget, but it’s one which was etched on Coutinho’s mind as he modeled his career on Barca’s Brazilian entertainer. Well, at least the football part.
As this particular Clasico was taking place, 13-year-old Coutinho will have been in his formative years at Vasco da Gama’s youth academy. His ambition, as well as his style of play, will have been influenced by watching one of football’s true magicians perform his tricks for Barcelona.
Coutinho’s club career eventually led him to Liverpool where, wearing the number ten shirt and playing from the left wing, but dropping into central midfield or attacking positions as he saw fit, he became one the club’s best players of modern times.
In doing so he also worked his way into the Brazil team and is now one of its key players along with Neymar, and his move to Barcelona could see him reach or even surpass Neymar’s profile and reputation in the Brazil side.
The pair played together at the 2009 U17 World Cup in Nigeria, but their Brazil team were knocked out in the group stages. Coutinho was subsequently involved in one of the best Brazil sides of recent times when the under-20s team he was a part of won the 2011 U20 World Cup in Colombia. Neymar was absent from this squad, but it included the likes of Casemiro, Oscar, Alex Sandro, and Danilo.
However, Coutinho’s club career stuttered somewhat in the early days as a move to Internazionale saw the young man’s career stall rather than kick on. This meant that despite making his senior debut for Brazil in 2010, taking part in two friendly matches against Iran and Ukraine, he would not make a third appearance for his country until after Brazil’s disastrous 2014 World Cup on home soil.
This may be a blessing in disguise for the playmaker who, thanks to his Liverpool form and the style of play used by current Brazil manager, Tite, has worked his way up the pecking order and is now one of the first names on the team sheet.
In terms of reputation and profile, a move to Barcelona can serve a Brazilian well, as Neymar himself found out. Neymar had been highly thought of even during his time playing in Brazil for Santos, and has been a regular in the Brazil set up since those days when, to the wider world, he was little more than a string of YouTube skills compilations.
But having secured the move to Barcelona which many of his compatriots can only dream of, Neymar left the Catalan club after four seasons — fewer than Coutinho spent at Liverpool — in order to become the star attraction at Paris Saint-Germain as opposed to playing in the shadows of Lionel Messi and Luis Suarez at the Camp Nou.
There’s a reason Ronaldinho moved from PSG to Barcelona back in 2003, and despite the current version of the side from the French capital being a different, richer, animal than they were back then, Neymar’s move in the opposite direction was still a questionable move in terms club prestige.
But while Neymar seeks Ballons D’Or and superstar status as an individual, Coutinho is now living the dream with a team he has longed for since his youth, and his family have had an eye on since their time in Barcelona in 2012 when the player was on loan at Espanyol.
For this particular Brazilian it appears that this will be his final destination. He speaks of the club, its former and current players, and the city itself with such awe that it’s difficult to imagine him leaving until he reaches his thirties. If he ever leaves.
Fitness permitting, his place in the Brazil squad for the 2018 World Cup was assured regardless of whether he stayed at Liverpool or moved to Barcelona, but his £142 million switch to Catalonia now sees him at the forefront of the hearts and minds of those in his homeland and beyond.
While he’ll struggle to wrest the No 10 shirt from Messi at club level, and from Neymar in the national side, his profile as a player will only rise. As a player who doesn’t appear concerned with squad numbers, Ballons D’Or, or other individual accolades, he epitomises the part of the Barcelona philosophy that teamwork will improve the individuals within said team, as instilled by Johan Cruyff and espoused by Pep Guardiola.
As a player who is tactically somewhere between Neymar and Iniesta, and one who has borrowed a couple of tricks from Ronaldinho’s repertoire, he seems like the perfect player to inject life into this Barcelona side who are already on course to win La Liga.
But it’s in the ranks of the Brazilian national team where his stock will really rise, as he becomes the latest star player from the spiritual home of the beautiful game to don the colours of the Blaugrana. A standing ovation at the Bernabeu may be pushing it, though.
