Why Lucas Moura is yet to win over Brazil critics despite European heroics

When Tite revealed his Brazil squad for the upcoming Copa America campaign, Lucas Moura’s omission wasn’t a surprise.

Among those picked ahead of Lucas in mid-May were inexperienced pair David Neres and Everton Soares, out-of-form Philippe Coutinho, and Richarlison, who scored one more goal than Ashley Barnes and Joshua King in the 2018-19 Premier League season.

And most of Brazil was fine with that.

“He’s had tangible success in terms of silverware, but I compare him to Theo Walcott in England,” Robbie Blakeley, a freelance journalist based in Brazil, told theScore. “There’s a player who was seen, as a teenager, as someone who had the world at his feet, and then hasn’t quite managed to live up to that early promise.”

Setting a high bar

Tottenham Hotspur’s two-legged triumph over Ajax was one of the Champions League’s greatest comebacks, and it was Lucas at the center of it. He was only starting because Harry Kane was injured, but his fourth hat-trick in professional football completed the unlikely rally. He burst into tears during the post-match interviews.

Lucas’ previous treble was 22 days earlier against Huddersfield Town, but his two hat-tricks before that were in February 2011 and October 2012. It was the first of those three-goal hauls, for Brazil in the South American Under-20 Championship, that raised expectations in his homeland to unattainable levels.

“He showed plenty of pace down the right wing, but often appeared to be playing in a tunnel, head down in his own little world,” Tim Vickery recalled of Lucas’ performances for much of that 2011 youth tournament.

The Sao Paulo attacker was just 18, and the youngest outfielder in a squad which included Neymar, Casemiro, Alex Sandro, Oscar, and Danilo. The teenager showcased his obvious strengths (namely pace and trickery) and bared his weaknesses (vision and his overall decision-making), but the Under-20 Championship looked little more than a learning curve for Lucas.

That was until his hat-trick in the final against 10-man Uruguay enchanted the continent. Lucas was suddenly one of the hottest young talents in Brazilian football.

He was subsequently fast-tracked to the senior ranks for that summer’s Copa America, rather than taking a more conventional route to the Under-20 World Cup in Colombia. Blakeley believes Lucas’ inclusion alongside Dani Alves, Julio Cesar, Robinho, and other world-renowned players was on merit.

“I wouldn’t say he was rushed through because if you look at Oscar, Coutinho, Moura, and Paulo Henrique Ganso – the four classic No. 10s coming through at that time – he was considered the best of that lot,” Blakeley said.

Lucas featured in each Selecao match at the competition as a substitute and was largely ineffectual as the seniors slumped to a quarterfinal elimination to Paraguay. Ganso, almost by consensus the biggest Brazilian flop of the past decade, started all four matches and has appeared just once on the international scene since.

Oscar and Coutinho, meanwhile, effectively orchestrated Brazil’s successful pursuit for honors at the 2011 Under-20 World Cup.

Shock to the system

Lucas’ swift ascent to Mano Menezes’ squad was widely judged as a major setback in his development, but it was far from the greatest hitch.

Less than a month after winning the 2012 Copa Sudamericana with Sao Paulo, the 20-year-old was unveiled as a Paris Saint-Germain player.

He was accustomed to being a regular starter in a roaming No. 10 role at Sao Paulo – switching positions with attacking teammates and infiltrating channels seemingly on a whim – so his slashed minutes and being shunted out wide to accommodate others was a shock to the system.

“When he does finally get a chance to play, he was possibly trying a little too hard to show what he could do,” Blakeley explained of Lucas’ PSG struggles. “He was playing more expansive than he needed to be; shooting from range when a pass might have been better – trying to do something spectacular to show that he should be in the team on a regular basis. That sort of thing has hindered his game.”

Criticism of Lucas in the French capital was a little overblown. Only Toni Kroos and Dani Alves crafted more key passes than Lucas during the 2016-17 Champions League term, despite both players playing the equivalent of five-and-a-half more matches than the PSG man.

Still, Lucas was increasingly overlooked at PSG as the Dubai era continued to bankroll moves for more marketable names.

Neymar and Kylian Mbappe’s summer 2017 arrivals effectively ended Lucas’ time with the club. He decided to remain in Paris until his child was born but eventually moved on in January 2018.

“I told Lucas what I thought, with all due respect to him. He no longer has the opportunity to have playing time in Paris and he will have more elsewhere,” Unai Emery, who was then in charge of PSG, said a week before Lucas’ transfer to Tottenham.

‘I always believed it was possible’

Now, it would appear Lucas is finally in a suitable setting to realize his potential – or at least get close to it.

Spurs manager Mauricio Pochettino was responsible for reviving Coutinho’s career when a loan spell with Espanyol offered a brief respite from a wholly underwhelming three-year stay with Inter. The tactician could be performing the same trick at Tottenham: Lucas is no longer just pushed out to the wing and is instead regularly appearing centrally in a reprisal of his role for Sao Paulo.

Pochettino is returning Lucas to his Brazilian roots.

“I have the opportunity to make my family, my friends and the people from my neighborhood happy,” he said in early May, wiping away tears after being shown a video of Brazilian commentators reacting to his third goal in Amsterdam. “(It’s) difficult to explain what I’m feeling – it’s incredible. I always believed it was possible.”

Hopefully, he gets that opportunity. Kane’s anticipated return to the matchday squad for Saturday’s Champions League final against Liverpool could threaten Lucas’ place in Tottenham’s starting XI. The forward missing the chance to influence the clash would deny journalists a convenient and heart-warming redemptive tale and, sadly, fuel opinion in his homeland that Lucas’ career is destined to be a disappointment.