In association with Goal light Football zone regularly out young players who can go far in the future or who are already earning their spurs in (inter)national top football. This time, the focus is on nineteen-year-old Fábio Carvalho. The midfielder already has a key role at this age at the Championship top Fulham. However, Carvalho’s contract expires this summer and just about every top European club is looking for his doodle.
Ryan Sessegnon made the definitive switch from Fulham to Tottenham Hotspur on August 8, 2019 for 27 million euros. After more than two and a half years of transfer troubles, it finally meant white smoke for the super talent, who made his debut at the age of sixteen in the main force of the Cottagers. At the time of the transfer, Sessegnon now held the titles of ‘youngest-scoring player in the Championship ever’, ‘first player born in the current millennium to score in the Championship and the Premier League’ and ‘best player in the Championship in the 2017/2017 season’. 18′ to his name. Among others.
Everyone at Fulham raved about it session. Former teammate Neeskens Kebano called the left back annex wing attacker ‘the future of English football’; former colleague Stefan Johansen was ’99 percent sure’ that Sessegnon would reach the top. Such talent was rare at Craven Cottage, something Fulham was certainly not to take for granted. 27 million was a mere trifle in that regard.
May 2021. Nearly two seasons and a promotion to the Premier League later, Fulham are 2-0 behind Chelsea at Stamford Bridge. The visitors are only one game away from another descent into the Championship: the second in three years. With twelve minutes left on the clock, fourth official Robert Jones holds up the substitution board. A boy with number 48 on his shirt, one Fábio Carvalho, is allowed to make his league debut for Fulham at the age of eighteen.
Carvalho, an ingenious attacking midfielder, cannot avoid defeat and relegation – that ended the following week with a 0-2 loss to Burnley. He does get his chances in the base in the remaining Premier League matches of that season. The young man takes them with both hands. Carvalho signs against Southampton (3-1 loss) with a rock hard shot into the goal roof for his first goal in the main squad and also impresses during the final game with Newcastle United (0-2 loss). His potential is visible to everyone. Will Fulham have another growth brilliance so soon?
The now nineteen-year-old Carvalho entered the Fulham Academy in 2014. The England youth international was born in Lisbon and also played in his native country from 2010 to 2013, at Benfica. When his parents decided to move to England, Carvalho ended up with Balham’s amateurs. Less than a year later, the talent was picked up by Fulham, where the caterpillar really started to emerge.
Carvalho broke through with the Under 18 as a 15-year-old and bartered back and forth between there and the Under 23 for three years. He was able to provide excellent figures every season, but the technician especially impressed in the last season (2020-21). In thirteen matches in the Premier League 2, the attacking midfielder produced no fewer than eleven goals and eight assists. His debut in the first team later that season could no longer be called a miracle.
pick. That. Out! ??
Fabio Carvalho’s stunning strike inspired #FFCU18s to a win over @LCFC.
???: https://t.co/FIJ6yIVlvJ pic.twitter.com/CKO96xIKTz
— Fulham Football Club (@FulhamFC) March 6, 2019
New Fulham coach Marco Silva (who had succeeded Scott Parker who had been sacked after relegation) was equally convinced. Carvalho started in the first five games of the new season and produced three goals and an assist before injuring his foot. After nine weeks of rehabilitation, the midfielder returned to base against Barnsley (4-1 win) last November and immediately found the net again. Since then, Carvalho has been a key player in the Fulham who, with 45 points from 23 matches, is heading straight for promotion to the Premier League.
Carvalho gets all the freedom in Silva’s 4-2-3-1 system, in which he can move between the lines to his heart’s content. As an agile number ten, he scores the necessary goals, creates many chances, but he is also not afraid to retrieve the ball when the situation calls for it. Carvalho asks a lot of himself, agrees Huw Jennings, director of the youth academy at Fulham. “Fábio is committed to self-development. In the coming years he wants to compete for the Ballon d’Or.”
You can’t win such a prize at Fulham, Carvalho will have concluded. His current contract expires at the end of June and the playmaker does not appear to be sympathetic to an extension. This started the rumor mill: Real Madrid, Barcelona, Chelsea and Liverpool would be after Carvalho. Agent Jorge Mendes – who has, among others, Cristiano Ronaldo, Bernardo Silva and James Rodriguez in his stable – reportedly even wants to personally guide him to the latter club.
The question is not if, but when Carvalho will leave. That could be the big difference with Sessegnon. The current Tottenham Hotspur player not only guided his former club Fulham to the Premier League, but also stayed there for a full season before leaving. Carvalho seems to be in more of a hurry and wants to pack all his bags next summer. Wherever the journey goes, the sky is the limit for the child prodigy. According to Marco Silva.