Raphinha has been revived at Barcelona – now he must lift Brazil as struggling Selecao search for answers in World Cup qualifying

Raphinha has always had to deal with doubt and disappointment. Unlike most players that reach the pinnacle of the profession, he wasn’t a childhood prodigy picked up by a top team at a young age. Consequently, he was forced to prove his worth in Brazil’s (in)famous varzea tournaments, “the home of the rejects” as he put it himself; an unforgiving arena for those still trying desperately to get an academy contract.

“It really is The Wild West, man,” he told The Players’ Tribune in 2021. “You play on clay. Burning heat. Dust and sand. Someone will bring a ball from home. Often there are no nets, just the posts. Bibs? Forget about it. One team just plays shirtless.

“And these players are really the rejects, man. They play with anger. They play to survive. They play like their lives depend on it… You would often see the bosses in the community stand around the pitch with guns. You could be about to score when a random gunshot would go off. Let me tell you, it can kind of put you off! The fireworks too, man. That’s why I always say that if you can play in the varzea games, you can play anywhere. A big European final? Don’t care. A stadium with 90,000 people? Bring it on.

“I’m still very proud that I played in so many varzea tournaments. And honestly, I loved it. Those games made me so tough. When I play now, I want to be booed. I want the pressure and the intimidation. That’s what gets me going.”

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  ‘Thought about leaving’

  Joining Barcelona, then, shouldn’t have come as such a shock to Raphinha’s system. But he struggled with the intense scrutiny. He felt the weight of the jersey, and it showed.

  He scored just once in his first 17 appearances in all competitions for Barca, and contributed only four assists. Perhaps even more significantly, the player that tormented full-backs in the Premier League appeared almost scared to take players on in La Liga.

  He looked and felt inhibited. Shockingly, a player forged in such a harsh environment in Porto Alegre felt like quitting Catalunya just months after arriving.

  “At the beginning, it was very challenging,” the €60 million (£50m/$66m) signing from Leeds United confessed in an interview with RAC1. “My adaptation to the club was difficult.

  “I knew it was something that had to happen, but not that it would be so difficult on a personal level. This moved my head a little, I sometimes thought about leaving – not at the end of the season, but in the first half of the season. Barca is a huge club and it is normal for it to be difficult [to adapt]. But I wasn’t used to that [kind of struggle].”
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  The tie that changed everything

  Raphinha began to settle after the resumption of play following the mid-season break for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, and his form improved. However, he was still in and out of Xavi’s team, with the former Barcelona boss regularly picking Ousmane Dembele on the right flank ahead of Raphinha.

  The Brazilian’s hopes of becoming a regular in his preferred position didn’t even improve after Dembele defected to Paris Saint-Germain in August 2023. Why? Because of the emergence of a truly outstanding right winger in Lamine Yamal. However, it was at this point that Raphinha’s resilience really came to the fore.

  When Barcelona played Paris Saint-Germain in the quarter-finals of last season’s Champions League, the continually questioned attacker belatedly proved that he had not only the talent but the character to play at the very highest level. Although the Blaugrana were beaten, Raphinha scored three times across the two legs – and those goals proved a turning point.

  “I think it was a tie that helped me to be much more confident and believe in myself much more,” he told his club’s official media channel. “I also think that after those games, people have been able to trust me a little more and appreciate what I can bring to the team.”

  There was still incessant talk of a transfer, though, because while he no longer wanted to leave Barcelona, the likelihood of him being forced out for financial reasons had only increased.

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  No room for Raphinha?

  The upturn in his form and fortunes, during the second half of the 2023-24 campaign in particular, essentially put Raphinha in the shop window. As one of the few very valuable assets on Barca’s books, Raphinha became the player it made most sense to sell, particularly as club president Joan Laporta was intent on signing two of Spain’s stars from Euro 2024: attacking midfielder Dani Olmo and left winger Nico Williams. If both deals went through, there would be simply no room for Raphinha on Barca’s balance sheet.

  In the end, though, only Olmo arrived, and even his game time has been restricted, by registration problems and injury issues. To say that Raphinha has taken advantage of his unexpected stay of execution would be a massive understatement.

  In 11 outings in all competitions so far this season, Raphinha has created 39 chances – more than any other player across Europe’s ‘Big Five’ leagues, including Bukayo Saka (34), Vinicius Jr (28), Florian Wirtz (26) and Cole Palmer (25) – and racked up five assists.

  Rather significantly, he’s also contributed six goals, after managing only 10 in each of his first two seasons at Barca, and is now part of the most prolific front three in Europe alongside Yamal and Robert Lewandowski.
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  The Flick factor

  The appointment of Hansi Flick as Xavi’s successor has unquestionably played a pivotal part in the massive increase in Raphinha’s productivity. Although nominally down as a left winger in the German’s favoured 4-2-3-1 formation, Raphinha has far greater freedom to move into central areas, and has also been sometimes deployed as a No.10 in Olmo’s current injury-enforced absence. In short, he’s now able to do what he feels he does best.

  “Last season, Xavi had me defending several times and the truth is that I really like being closer to the goal,” Raphinha told La Liga. “I’m a player who really likes to score and assist, so I know that the closer the goal is, the more opportunities I have to score or pass, whereas I’m a little further away on the wing and it can be a little more complicated, depending on the game.”

  Flick would argue, though, that Raphinha has earned this offensive freedom because he works so hard from a defensive perspective, even going so far as to label the 27-year-old as an “example” of the kind of intensity he craves from his players, particularly in terms of his pressing.

  Raphinha is just as respected by his Barcelona team-mates, who were incredibly impressed by the way in which he continued to fight for his starting spot last season and, thus, voted him one of the squad’s four captains during the summer.

  Consequently, with first-choice skipper Marc-Andre ter Stegen having been ruled out for the remainder of the season through injury, Raphinha is now regularly wearing the armband and proving a most worthy recipient of such an honour, with a resurgent, unified and free-scoring Barca presently three points clear at the top of La Liga.

  It will, therefore, be fascinating to see whether he can maintain the momentum he has built up with the Blaugrana during the international break with Brazil.

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  Barca’s unlikely hero to Brazil’s rescue?

  Ronaldinho, remember, didn’t just say that the current Selecao is predominantly populated by “average players”, he also claimed it was utterly devoid of “respectable leaders”. He’ll feel he was right, too, given nobody really responded to his criticism – on the field, at least, with Brazil suffering a terribly tame and embarrassingly early exit at the Copa America just a couple of weeks after withdrawing his support of the national team.

  Despite scoring a big goal against Colombia in the group stage, Raphinha was among those to lose his place in the squad in the wake of the quarter-final loss to Uruguay, but he’s been recalled for the upcoming World Cup qualifiers against Chile and Peru, after Brazil once again underwhelmed in last month’s clashes with Ecuador and Paraguay.

  The dismal 1-0 loss to the latter left Dorival Junior’s Selecao side fifth in the CONMEBOL standings and just one point above eighth-placed Bolivia. Of course, given the top six qualify for the finals, and seventh spot secures an inter-confederation play-off, Brazil should still easily progress.

  However, as Ronaldinho’s ‘resignation’ so painfully underlined, the nation needs new idols. Raphinha has already emerged as an unlikely hero at Barcelona; he now has an ideal opportunity to become Brazil’s too.