Juan Carlos Chera: The Boy from Brazil That Football Forgot

I remember it clearly. It was about three years ago whilst, as I am accustomed to do, I was browsing through the annuls of YouTube that I first heard the name. The video seemed fairly innocuous at first, just a small boy playing football, but this was no ordinary small boy. Most six-year-old boys struggle to get the ball off the ground, while Chera, at the same age scored at 30-yard free kick into the top corner. It was men against boys, but the man was only six.

The range and sheer array of Chera’s repertoire shocked me; I was in awe. I have always been pretty successful in football—been considered a good player—yet here was a nine-year-old making me feel inadequate. After I had watched the video I did some research on the boy, if that was the correct term to use. "Santos next Robinho," "The next coming of Pele," "The boy with the world at his feet;" I wasn’t alone.

Fast forward to today and despite the interest of the footballing elite for the past eight years, Chera is still at Santos. Things are quiet on the Chera front. Speculation of a move to Man United never materialised; likewise Barcelona. So Chera stayed and the interest died away. The copyright on his website JuanCarlosChera.com ran out in 2004, a relic to a time when the boy had the world at his feet.

Admittedly it isn’t completely over for Chera. He is, after all only approaching his 16th birthday, but the clamour is not as it was. The "next Pele," would not still be at Santos and if he were, teams would be beating down the hatches. The doors at Santos stand silent—the world’s love affair with Juan Carlos Chera has taken its leave.

To me a footballer's ability is essentially in the eye of the beholder. This might smack somewhat of lunacy, but I feel that the fact Chera has never yet appeared on a database of Football Manager (the fact that he is only 15 is not the reason; there are and have been other 15-year-olds on FM), speaks wonders. To write Chera’s name into Wikipedia I am asked if I mean '90s motorcycle rider Carlos Checa. The fanfare has played itself out.

The sad ignominy of the situation is that I feel that Chera’s early talent set an unrealistic precedent that the boy could never hope to achieve. Analysis of talent should be with circumspect, development happens at different rates, the ability of a six-year-old, even one as mercurially talented as Chera cannot be compared to the man he "will" become. In retrospect, as jealous as I was of Chera’s ability, I don’t envy his position. Whatever he does from here on out, it will always be compared to what he might have been.

Juan Carlos Chera grows by the day. Another day older, another day further from the boy he once was. In the future, who knows? He might well become a professional footballer, I for one hope that he does. Yet, in reality it now appears unlikely that this will be outside Brazil. So here we are, the boy that people thought that the world would never forget is the boy that many never even got the chance to know.