The Real Madrid-bound forward is still only 17 years of age but he's played a pivotal role in a nail-biting title race
Football can be a cruel game. It's never over until the final whistle blows. Titles can sometimes be lost even after they appear to have been won. Nobody will ever forget Newcastle and Kevin Keegan cracking under the pressure applied upon the Premier League's great entertainers by Manchester United and Sir Alex Ferguson's mind games in 1996.
Or the time a Real Madrid team containing Zinedine Zidane, Ronaldo, Luis Figo, David Beckham and Roberto Carlos went from first to fourth in La Liga after losing six of their final seven games.
And there's Steven Gerrard's infamous slip in 2014, when Liverpool were perfectly placed to end a championship drought that stretched back to 1990, only to see their captain gift Chelsea a goal that still haunts him today.
However, when it comes to spectacular collapses, the almost-unbelievable Botafogo bottle-job of 2023 trumps the whole lot. Never before have we seen a team in one of the world's top leagues squander such an advantage at the top of the table, through a costly combination of misfortune, mismanagement and the sensational form of a 17-year-old striker who looks set to take the Santiago Bernabeu by storm next season…
Getty A stunning fall from grace
On Sunday, August 12, Botafogo beat Internacional 3-1 at home to complete a record-breaking first half of the Brasileiro Serie A season. They had dropped just 10 points in 19 games – and were 13 clear at the summit.
A first league title since 1995 appeared a formality. Some excited supporters even got tattoos of the trophy. Perhaps they should have known better. Botafogo and bad luck have long been bedfellows. Perhaps an implosion was inevitable.
Still, nobody could have foreseen what unfolded: a second half of the season as historic as the first – just for all the wrong reasons.
Botafogo face Internacional again on Wednesday night – but are now fifth in the table going into their final fixture of a truly astonishing campaign, their title dream already dashed in the most devastating of fashion.
Incredibly, the former runaway leaders have gone 10 games without a victory and will equal their worst-ever winless run in the Brasileiro if they fail to triumph at the Estadio Beira-Rio.
AdvertisementGetty Ronaldo key to Castro's shock exit
So, how did it come to this? Well, funnily enough, Cristiano Ronaldo played a part, with the striker recommending that Al-Nassr hire Botafogo boss Luis Castro as their new head coach during the summer.
Castro quit at the end of June to join his fellow Portuguese in Saudi Arabia and, despite some positive early results, Botafogo slowly began to unravel under his successor, former Wolves manager Bruno Lage, who was appointed on July 8 but sacked less than three months later after losing the dressing-room during three consecutive defeats in September.
The players convinced the club to put Under-23s coach Lucio Flavio in charge until the end of the season. However, the fan favourite failed to stop the rot, overseeing just two wins in eight outings in all competitions, and Tiago Nunes took over at the tail end of last month.
Incredibly, the situation was still salvageable at that stage, but Botafogo have since drawn all four of their league games under Nunes and last weekend's scoreless clash with Cruzeiro meant that the Rio-based side could no longer win the league, prompting a bitter fan backlash at the Nilton Santos. Some supporters had even thrown popcorn at the players before kick-off, as '' in Brazil is associated with wasting strong starts.
Getty Botafogo's bad luck begins
The fans' frustration is understandable, in fairness. The way in which Botafogo have contrived to drop points has been truly astounding.
Luck certainly hasn't been on their side at times. The winless run began in October against Athletico-PR, when Botafogo went 1-0 up early on through top-scorer Tiquinho Soares only to see a floodlight failure result in the suspension of play.
When the game resumed, the VAR technology stopped working and that proved crucial, as Athletico equalised with a goal from Pablo that should have been disallowed for offside.
However, even accounting for bizarre occurrences or clashes with the coach, the players have to take a significant share of the blame for Botafogo's capitulation.
The likes of Lucas Perri, Adryelson, Victor Cuesta, Eduardo and Tiquinho Soares have suffered dramatic dips in form, while the team has repeatedly failed to hold onto big leads.
Endrick fuelled by the 'fire of hatred'
At the start of November, Botafogo hosted Palmeiras in a game that would have a colossal impact on the title race. The home side went 3-0 up inside 36 minutes and the game appeared to be over. However, Endrick dragged the defending champions back into the contest with a scintillating solo strike shortly after half-time before Adryelson was sent off with 14 minutes of normal time remaining.
Even then, though, Botafogo had the chance to finish Palmeiras off for good, but Tiquinho missed an 83rd-minute penalty.
Just over 60 seconds later, the ball dropped for Endrick on the edge of the Botafogo box. He sat down one defender with an outrageous dummy before finding the bottom corner with a low strike.
Jose Manuel Lopez levelled in the dying embers of normal time and then Murilo struck in the 99th minute of the craziest of encounters to leave Botafogo and their fans crestfallen.
Local hero Lucas Verthein was particularly upset, as he had inadvertently played a part in an incredibly driven display from the game-changing Endrick.
The teenager admitted after the game that he was fuelled by the "fire of hatred" in his heart after hearing Botafogo fans seemingly singing about their team being crowned champions.
"I wasn't going to let them shout that, given our fans had come here to support us," Endrick explained afterwards. "Botafogo has everything it takes to be champions, but that's what Palmeiras already are – and Palmeiras will never stop chasing.
"And I'm going to fight every minute, every second, to win this Brasileirao. As my friends, my father, my managers say, I'm a player who shows up at times when it's difficult. I like games like this."
In reality, though, the Botafogo fans had merely been paying tribute to Verthein winning a gold medal at the Pan-American Games in Chile.
"Not even in my worst nightmares would I have imagined that my victory could be responsible for having Endrick like that," the rower wrote on social media.
