Unflagging Richarlison and Pickford keep Everton on path to safety

It was the last trial. The last chance. After countless rebuffs and rejections, a 12-hour bus journey to Belo Horizonte for an open training session with America’s under-17 side awaited him. If he failed to make the grade then not only would he have no real future in football, but he also had no way of getting home. A one-way ticket was all Richarlison de Andrade could afford. No safety net. No second chances.

Perhaps in a parallel timeline, Richarlison does not impress the America scouts that morning. Perhaps he turns an ankle and is forced to limp to the sidelines, dejected and distraught. Perhaps he hitches a lift back to his home town of Nova Venécia, just off the eastern seaboard of Brazil, and goes back to selling sweets from a cart. Perhaps like many of his hometown friends, he ends up running drugs, in prison or in the ground.

And so, a minute into the second half at Goodison Park, Richarlison is on another journey. Chelsea have the ball and are working it across the defence to César Azpilicueta, just as they have done in a thousand training sessions and match situations before. Richarlison knows that his chances of winning the ball, on his own, against a Champions League-winning backline, are almost non-existent. But something deep within, some voice from a not-so-distant past, tells him he has no choice. And so he chases.

Azpilicueta hesitates on the ball. That fraction of a second is all that Richarlison needs to swallow up the ground between them and throw a hopeful leg at the ball. That yard of fine-tuned pace is the difference between the ball deflecting harmlessly away towards the touchline and ricocheting back towards him, giving him a clear run on goal. As the ball hits the net and Goodison Park