The Best Brazilian Players to Have Featured in the English Premier League

Picking out the best Brazilian players from the Premier League era is not quite as glamorous a task as you might think.

When you think of Brazilian footballers, you think of swagger and skill and copious amounts of vibrancy and excitement. Unfortunately for those of us who take a keen interest in the Premier League, the archetypal Brazilian superstars have scarcely graced English soil. 

When it has come to Brazilian flair players, the Premier League has chewed up and spat out the majority. The amount of ridiculed failures far outweigh the success stories. 

The likes of Robinho, Geovanni and Elano showed their quality in glimpses but failed to perform on a real consistent basis. The likes of Julio Baptista and Alfonso Alves, moreover, are well known for the wrong reasons.

Instead, the Samba stars that have fared best in England have been the ones that have been best suited to the Premier League's culture. Physical, tough tackling players with a good engine. The two best Brazilian players in the league at the moment, Chelsea's Ramires and Manchester United's Rafael, both have these traits in abundance.

But with the Premier League an ever-changing landscape, will the day come when more superstars from the world's most famous footballing nation call the Premier League home? 

First of all, let's look at the top three Brazilian players in Premier League history.

3. Lucas Leiva

There was a point when nobody was really sure what Lucas Leiva was meant to be.

Pundits were unsure. His manager Rafael Benitez was undecided on what role he should be playing. The culmination of this meant that Lucas wasn't an overly popular figure amongst Liverpool supporters.

But, as is so often the story in football, things change. Opinions change.

Lucas was given an extended run in his preferred holding position and hasn’t looked back.

Before a recent poor run of injuries, the Liverpool man was maturing into one of the best holding players in Europe. His tackling in particular has been a key feature of his game, with the frequency and accuracy of his tackles especially impressive.

Recent performances away at Manchester City and Arsenal have suggested that the Brazilian could be getting back to his best.

Liverpool will be all the better for it when he does.

2. Juninho

The northeast of England probably couldn’t be any further removed from the sunny beaches and warm climate of Brazil.

But that didn’t stop a young Brazilian player by the name of Juninho when he joined Middlesborough in 1995, turning down some of Europe's big names to do so.

He went on to become Middlesborough’s greatest player in the modern era, as the young Brazilian's pace and trickery guided the Teeside outfit to the FA Cup and League Cup Finals in his first spell at the club.

Juninho became an instant hero in Teeside, with his samba style endearing him to the club's supporters. Not to mention his rumoured kick-abouts on the streets of Middlesborough!

Juninho loved the place so much he returned on two more occasions following his first spell. In doing so he helped 'Boro to their first-ever major trophy in 2004, as they triumphed over Bolton Wanderers in the League Cup Final.

Juninho is probably the most successful Brazilian "flair player" the Premier League has seen. He was an absolute joy to watch at his best.

1. Gilberto Silva

Gilberto Silva remains one of those players that Arsene Wenger has failed to ever really replace.

He was a fantastically versatile defensive player, operating primarily as a holding midfielder but occasionally at the heart of the back four.

Coupled with his excellent distribution skills and steely nerve from the penalty spot, he became a vital player in Wenger’s successful team of the mid-00’s. He won three trophies in his spell at Arsenal, going on to captain the club and become the first Arsenal player to score at the Emirates Stadium.

He also had great success in his time in the national team, lifting the World Cup in 2006.

With his experience and leadership skills, Gilberto is exactly the type of player Wenger would love to have in his current side.

He still remains the best Brazilian player to ever grace the English game.

The Future?

So, is the Premier League a more hospitable environment for Brazilian stars than ever before?

Probably.

The Premier League is not as unforgiving a league as it once was. Players from across the globe would often take months to get into their stride upon their arrival. Some would never seem to get up to speed at all.

Now, with foreign influence more prominent than ever before, overseas stars seem to have little regard for the fearsome reputation of the Premier League.

Technical players like Juan Mata, Eden Hazard and Santi Cazorla have hit the ground running as new arrivals. Whereas in years gone, players like Dennis Bergkamp and Gianfranco Zola initially took a lot longer to settle at their respective clubs. Eventually they went on to achieve great things.

So managers might begin to looks at some of these Brazilian stars and think "yeah, this lad can come in and do a job for us straight away."

With the up-and-coming Brazilian talent emerging, fans of the Premier League will be hoping so.

The litmus test for this may well be Chelsea's young superstar, Oscar. The £25-million man obviously has extensive ability, having demonstrated so in bucket-loads already this campaign.

But the majority of his stand-out performances have come in European competition, with a few smatterings of brilliance in the Premier League.

Everything is in place for Oscar to flourish. Now he requires an extended run in the first team to blossom into a world-class player.

If he can do that at Cheslea, others will certainly begin to take note.

So, Neymar. Fancy it?