Gabriel Jesus: Underestimated by His Own
People insist on underestimating the talent of Gabriel Jesus.
Since his first professional match with Palmeiras back in 2015, it was easy to see that Jesus was a supremely talented player. His quickness, his skills and his impressive quality in front of the opponents’ goal made Pep Guardiola, Manchester City’s coach, turn his attention to the Brazilian striker.
Guardiola was so impressed that he decided to invite Jesus to join Manchester City. During an interview with the magazine FourFourTwo, the striker explained how the Spanish coach’s interest in him made him feel special and was one of the reasons why he decided to join the Citizens.
“Guardiola called me up and said I would be a very important part of his project,” the Brazilian said. “This obviously made me feel wanted and was a big factor in helping me pick City as my next club. There had been a lot of clubs interested in signing me at the time, but the one I felt most confident in was City.”
Since his first match wearing the Citizens’ jersey against Tottenham in Jan. of 2017, the Brazilian has scored 93 goals, provided 46 assists and won 10 titles as a Manchester City player.
However, more than five years after his arrival and in spite of all the incredible statistics, the general opinion about the striker’s talent is lower than it should be, especially in Brazil.
The doubt regarding the striker in Brazil started after the 2018 FIFA World Cup, where he ended the tournament without scoring a single goal, resulting in heavy criticism from the Brazilian media.
Undeniably, Jesus did not have a good performance during the championship and, since the World Cup, he has not been the same player we used to see when it comes to his performance on the Brazilian national team.
However, since the game against Belgium, the 25-year-old striker has also shown a lot of improvement in other areas which is often overlooked by many fans, who can’t shake their view of the “striker who was not able to score a single goal at the World Cup.”
Jesus scored four goals and provided an assist during Manchester City’s 5-1 win against Watford last weekend. However many fans in his native country chose to criticize the player despite his amazing performance using the same tired argument as always: I don’t care if he scored four goals against Watford, he could not score a single goal on the biggest stage of them all.
After the match, many football social media pages used the image of the Brazilian striker on their posts and the trolls came out in full force: “he can not play like this in the national team…I hope he does not go to the world cup this year…or I hope Tite (Brazil’s coach) is not watching this game.”
People fail to realize they are criticizing a player whose quality is praised by one of the greatest coaches in the history of the game and a striker who has the capability of being helpful for his team. Not only scoring goals, but also creating good chances for his teammates to find the back of the net as well.
Jesus is easily the best center forward Brazil could deploy for the upcoming world cup and he seems to be ready to perform in Qatar. Brazilian fans need to come to terms with the fact that in order for their team to reach its full potential at this year’s tournament, they need Jesus.
The 2022 World Cup will be the redemption for Gabriel Jesus and if he plays the tournament with the same hunger and motivation as he has been playing for Manchester City these past few years, he will finally put an end to this sad chapter of his journey on the Brazilian national team.
-Matheus Teles
Photo: Andre Borges. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.