Wesley faces Real Madrid tonight, a full-circle moment a decade after the Spanish club offered him a chance he never took. In 2016, at 12 years old, Wesley was among the best performers at a Real Madrid camp in Florianópolis, Brazil, organised through Savio Bortolini, a former Real Madrid and Flamengo player who had secured ten places for underprivileged children. The reward was a trip to Spain and a week training with the Blancos—a dream that never materialised. "The door closed before it even really opened," the narrative suggests, as difficult years followed: spells at Figueirense and Tubarao, the pandemic, and a crisis of belief. Wesley worked in his family's restaurant—his mother as a cook, his sister helping out, him parking cars—far from football and what seemed an unreachable dream. "I thought football wasn't in my destiny," he reflected.
His sister convinced him to try again. Wesley returned to professional football, rebuilt his career through Flamengo, and eventually reached Europe via Roma in the summer of 2025. A decade has passed since that camp. Now, with Roma in the Champions League, he confronts the club that abandoned him as a boy—no longer the aspiring 12-year-old, but a player at one of Italy's biggest clubs.
Tonight Wesley has the chance to show Real Madrid exactly what they lost when that Spanish opportunity fell through. The journey from his family's kitchen to facing the Blancos represents a reversal of the fortune that seemed foreclosed ten years ago.
Testo Originale / Source Text
“Un ragazzo di 12 anni, un sogno e una valigia piena di speranze. Wesley era così. Giovane, con il pallone tra i piedi e un futuro tutto da scrivere. Nel 2016, però, quel futuro sembrava già avere una destinazione precisa: Madrid. Il Real. La squadra che sognava di raggiungere. L'occasione arrivò a…”
Read the full article in Italian at Forza Roma.
