It was, when it finally came, not just the only significant moment of this oddly half-paced international friendly, but a lovely moment too, and one that arrived shot through with a strange kind of relief.
Such is the life of a prodigy. Endrick is still only 17 years old, but seems to have spent his entire teenage existence being the next thing, fresh content for an industry that commodifies talent from the moment it first raises its head.
He is yet to play a full season. His most significant acts to date on a first-team field are a fine end to the year with Palmeiras and an endlessly YouTubed overhead-kick goal from last year. But just watching him run and manoeuvre the ball at Wembley there was a sense of recognition. Oh yes. This is what talent looks like.
Endrick has wonderful snap, thrilling speed, explosive creativity in small spaces. He is already going to Real Madrid where he will need time and space to grow and fail and find his way, as Vinícius Júnior did at first. Endrick is also the youngest man now to score an international goal at Wembley Stadium. But he has already spoken about pressure and backlash and hostility on social media. This is a career on fast forward, irradiated by fame, clicks, hunger, the pressure now to make that step up.
But it was still a lovely moment, nine minutes after Endrick had come on, with the game goalless, as Vinícius hared off through the centre of a suddenly open England defence. Jordan Pickford palmed his shot away, but only into the path of Endrick, who had followed the run and kept his distance, free to tap it into the empty net and win the game for Brazil in front of their fans.
There is a saying in South America that poverty is good for nothing but making footballers. Brazil still has plenty of both. This is a country that likes to agonise over its national obsession. Football has been regularised, taken out of the streets, made into more of a production-line affair. Players leave so early for Europe. There is a sense of disconnect.
The emergence of an Endrick, this Endrick, the next Endrick, seems to speak to something in the country’s sense of itself. There will always be more. But Endrick has also had to climb to this point out of genuine poverty. His mother was homeless while he was growing up. He lived in an orphanage for a while. Palmeiras came calling, gave his father a job as a janitor, and found themselves the next big thing. Endrick has even had time already for one near miss.
Famously, he wanted to sign for Chelsea. The club had found him a house, his parents liked the look of the south-west London-Surrey badlands. Todd Boehly pulled the plug on the move because, in the words of Endrick’s dad, who clearly has a wry sense of humour, Boehly was worried about “inflating the market”.
There may be a better example of the flaring idiocy of allowing a person with no experience of football to act as a spendthrift sporting director. But none spring to mind.
And Endrick will now always have Wembley. This was a brown paper and string Brazil team. It was Dorival Júnior’s first game in charge, with a management CV that features 23 different spells at 20 different clubs. But Brazil deserved their victory here, against a weakened England team, but it was one that still showed the joins, the missed stitches in the best XI.
There were matters to be settled here for Gareth Southgate. The bright spots are easy enough: Anthony Gordon was England’s best new attacker. He was eager and direct and combined well with Jude Bellingham. He dribbled a lot, tracked back, looked unafraid.
The misses were also fairly clear: deprived of Harry Kane and Bukayo Saka the attack lacked its usual base level of viciousness. Ollie Watkins, who played the whole game here, is a good centre-forward. But the step down is significant from Kane, who has 57 goals in his past 55 games, who is currently Europe’s best orthodox No 9.
Other misses: Harry Maguire started here, as he will at the Euros. Watching him surrounded by nimble-footed Brazilian attackers in their early 20s it looked at times as though someone had wheeled a solid mahogany armoire out on to the pitch and just left it there.
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The identity of the other guy next to Declan Rice is yet to be resolved. Conor Gallagher was the safe starting choice here. Kobbie Mainoo got 15 minutes and took about 90 seconds to look so much smoother, more comfortable, better on the half-turn, less in the way of chest-puffed Three-Lions mania. He’s just so young. He’s also just very good at this.
Southgate will talk up the best parts of this game. But England were limp here, Wembley a somnolent, fidgety kind of place, in a game that offered more in the way of unanswered questions, and that single moment of light and heat at the other end.
