“Fast gazelle” - footballer Jo received such a nickname due to his high speed and sharpness, due to which he shone on the fields of Brazil and Russia, regularly upsetting goalkeepers of rivals with goals scored. At one time, he was considered one of the most promising young forwards playing in Europe, but he decided to try his hand at the English Premier League and, not adapting to the tough style of the game, returned to his homeland in Brazil.
Speed Multiplied by Technique
The football player Jo, whose photos are familiar to all fans of CSKA and Corinthians, continues to play football at a high level, having long left the European fields. This is a very fast and technical striker, throughout the match forcing pressure on other people's gates.
Tall, long-legged, footballer Jo, nevertheless, has excellent control over his body and is well coordinated. With a good vision of the field and a good pass culture, he is able to play a drawn forward, taking part in organizing and developing attacks.
The Brazilian is not the most athletic player, so he is not very good at fighting defenders within the penalty area, which requires the ability to easily push opponents with mass and power. He feels more freely where there is enough space to accelerate and beat opponents at speed.
Certain complaints caused his actions when playing on the defensive. Not the most athletic footballer, Jo reluctantly went to tough martial arts when selecting the ball, preferring to shift the responsibility for this to his partners. This was one of the reasons for his unsuccessful performances in England, where the concentration of hard joints and tacking per square meter of field went off scale and was the highest in Europe.
Becoming a striker
Juan Alves di Assis Silva, or simply Jo, was born in 1987 in Sao Paulo. As the son of a professional football player, he did not even think of anything else but about practicing the most popular sport in Brazil. In 1997, he entered the football school of the legendary Corinthias, where he stood out among his peers by his extraordinary technique and remarkable sporting intelligence.
Since 2002, Jo began to regularly be called up in various youth teams of Brazil, having won many international awards. In 2003, a native of Sao Paulo first played for Corinthians, becoming the youngest debutant in club history.
For three seasons, he spent more than a hundred matches, scoring 13 goals. The effectiveness, of course, is not amazing, but it should be noted that the role of the main snipers was assigned to other players, Jo did a huge amount of useful work on organizing the game.
Golden Horseshoe for Fast Gazelle
In 2005, Jo's talent was spotted on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. Many European clubs were interested in the services of a promising striker, however, Moscow CSKA, which signed a contract with a football player, was the fastest to navigate.
In Russia, the guy from Sao Paulo did not have any problems with adaptation, because by that time a solid Brazilian diaspora had gathered in the army club, including Wagner, Dudu, Carvalho. A flexible, technical footballer, Jo stood out against the background of predictable and straightforward Russian strikers.
With the help of his Brazilian club mates, he very brightly began his career in the new club, having accumulated 14 goals in the first round of the national championship. However, due to an injury, he missed the second half of the season, remaining in second place in the scorers race.
Nevertheless, admiring army fans, for their part, encouraged the new favorite with the Golden Horseshoe Award for outstanding Goleodor skills.
The so-called "second season syndrome" did not hit CSKA football player Jo, and he continued to score, becoming the club's top scorer with 13 goals in 2007. Then even the official UEFA magazine included him in the top five of the best young football players in Europe.
The crisis
In 2008, Manchester City, which was still not the richest super club, laid out £ 18 million for the football player Jo, which was the most expensive transfer in the history of the English team. However, as often happens, the English Premier League has become a kind of purgatory for the technical, but not very athletic player.
Veron, Di Maria, Forlan - all these were unusually talented guys, but in the conditions of super-hard English football they were lost and could not show their best qualities. The same fate befell Jo, who for three years as part of Manchester City spent only 21 matches, scoring a single goal. Most of the time he wandered around on leases, playing in Everton, Galatasaray.
Frustrated by European realities, Jo returned to his homeland, where after a series of unsuccessful transitions, he found himself in Atlético Mineiro and even earned a call to the national team to participate in the 2010 World Cup. Now a talented striker plays in his native Corinthians, continuing to regularly score in the Brazilian championship.