Brazil streetfighters Jesus and Richarlison can fire Arsenal and Spurs to new heights

From the land of 'jogo bonito', Brazilian footballers are famed for their samba style, having wowed audiences for decades with an attacking flair one can only be born with. No matter how good the facilities or coaching at top European clubs' academies are, such skill cannot be taught.

But fleet-footed bedazzlement is no longer enough, especially in the Premier League, where Manchester City and Liverpool have taken relentlessness and unfathomable physical superiority to a different realm.

Arsenal and Tottenham’s progress has been marginal at best in recent years, but City and Liverpool are so far ahead they are a dot on the horizon. The north London teams needed a change, and have turned to a pair of Brazilian streetfighters in Gabriel Jesus and Richarlison to do just that, hoping their determined battling qualities honed during difficult upbringings can inspire them to real, lasting improvement.

“As a kid, Gabriel began playing on pitches of a military prison, but it was better than being caught up with other things going in our tough neighbourhood,” Fabio Caran, founder of Anhanguera, a social project in the north of Sao Paulo that offered children aged between 13 and 16 the chance to play Varzea (Brazil's version of amateur football or Sunday league), tells The National.

“There were many players before him who were better technically, and many since. But none had his determination to make a better life for himself. When you want it, you work hard. I got tired of training Gabriel!”

Given his chance on the grass pitches by Caran’s project, Jesus never looked back. Nothing, however, was given to him. Playing Varzea meant he was up against fully grown men from the age of 13, from some of the toughest parts of Sao Paulo.