Okay… so… everyone loves a good old one
season wonder... but what if I told you there was one player who seemed so painfully average
his national team would barely even acknowledge his existence... who then one season just
seemingly flipped a switch and began pulling off the kind of goalscoring numbers only Ronaldo
and Messi can aspire to… leading his team to unprecedented levels of glory… only to
go back to normal the second that season ended… seemingly disappearing into the shadows…
to the point that today, just 6 years after his retirement nobody seems to even remember
him… It’s like if Jamie Vardy had played twice as well as he did, won the title for
Leicester and then gone missing the second he put down the trophy… If you haven't caught
onto it just yet… the player I am talking about is Grafite… and his career really
is that similar to Vardy’s, in the sense that by the time he was in his early 20’s
he had pretty much given up hope of ever going pro… instead he was working as a door to
door salesman… selling heavy duty garbage bags…
His very last bit of hope of making it in football was Matonense… a team that only
played in their regional championship and somehow still managed to get relegated that
year… You see, Grafite had tried everything… he went on so many trials and still things
never worked out for him… Actually, to be fair, he did get approved at Paulista De Jundiaí…
I mean, come on… they’re a third tier club, if even they rejected you, I guess you
might as well quit… but as I was explaining, even that chance meant nothing, because they
asked him to stay for a few more days and Grafite simply had to say no… because he
had a 1 year old daughter and he had to go back to work…
Thankfully, at the age of 22, he found his light at the end of the tunnel… with first
division Santa Cruz coming to his rescue… but guess what? They got relegated immediately…
And with 5 goals to his name it didn’t seem like Grafite would stand much of a chance
but somehow Grémio decided to sign him… though I’m pretty sure they quickly regretted
it, as his time there went something like this: he arrived, he got injured after one
match, came back 3 months later and scored only 3 goals for the club, before they sent
him back to Santa Cruz… where he’d finally start putting up some numbers, scoring 11
goals in 15 games… only to watch them lose out on promotion to the top flight… losing
the trust of the board once again… who pretty much just told him “time to learn korean
buddy”... And that’s how he went from selling garbage
bags to playing in South Korea in the space of like 2 years… But still, that didn’t
last either… Not only did he struggle to adapt to the new country, he then had a major
falling out with the manager and when it seemed his feeble career would inevitably crumble…
With 4 months left in the season… Goiás, who by then was fighting relegation, gave
him a chance and he finally made the most of it… pulling off 12 goals in the short
period of time he got at the club, flipping their form around, with 13 wins in 20 matches,
finishing the season in 9th place, which for Goiás definitely qualified as a success and
even earning Grafite the prestigious bola de prata, the award given to anyone in the
league’s team of the season… which later on earned him a move to São Paulo…
Finally playing for one of the countries top clubs, Grafite initially struggled to find
his place, but once Luis Fabiano left the team, he finally managed pop off, going on
a run of 17 goals and 6 assists in 24 matches, that allowed him to settle himself a one of
the team’s key players, finishing the year as their top goalscorer, then somehow carrying
that same form onto the next season, despite the fact the year started with his mother
being kidnapped… Yeah you heard that right…. Even more incredible…
somehow, while through all of that, he also managed to earn himself a call up to the Brazilian
national team, on what was Romário's last ever match… It almost seemed like the writing
was on the wall… like Romário was passing him the baton…
But in reality all that year had for him was more heartbreak… 1 month after that match,
Grafite went down with a ligament rupture and was then forced into surgery… watching
from home as São Paulo made it to the final of the Libertadores without him…
He would still force himself to make it back in time for the final’s first leg, but if
you need any proof that he wasn’t at all ready to be back on the pitch… let me tell
you that not only did he miss the second leg but it took him nearly 4 months after the
final before he played another match… not even managing to get back in shape in time
for the club world cup final, where’d only play for 15 minutes… On that same note,
though the national team had initially planned to call him up for the Confederations Cup…
after that injury, they decided to leave him out as well… again, watching from home as
they won that tournament… adding one more reason why that year sucked for Grafite…
And so, already 27 years old and with every single one of his achievements being handicapped
by some sort of tragedy, Grafite who a year before was probably day dreaming of a move
to a top club, ended up instead joining recently promoted Le Mans in France… but hey, his
salary was 5 times higher than what they paid him in Brazil so it wasn’t all bad…
Once in France, with only 3 months remaining in the season at the time of his arrival,
he didn’t get to do much… and the following season didn’t look promising either until
the turn of the year… because right as the holiday season ended, Grafite went on a run
of 8 goals in 15 matches… which might not sound like much but you gotta keep in mind
we’re talking about an era where the league’s top scorer was settling for a measly 15 goals…
Grafite’s 12 were enough to put him on the goalscorers podium… Actually, add that to
the fact that he did it while playing for a team who up till his arrival had been relegated
from the top flight at every chance they got to be on it… and you start to see why it
was impressive enough to get some eyes on him…
In fact, around that time, 1000 kilometers northeast of Le Mans, a revolution had started…
A man named Felix Magath had arrived at Wolfsburg and having already led Bayern to two Bundesliga
titles, well let’s just say he wasn’t just going to allow his players to settle
for the mediocrity of their constant battles against relegation so he got to work…. picking
players from all across europe, often names no one was too familiar with at the time…
Josué, Ricardo Costa, Dzeko, Benaglio… and of course, as you might be anticipating
already… Grafite… but Magath had never even heard of him… he was only scouted because
some random consultant had suggested his signing and even then the scout didn’t exactly praise
him too much… Magath only signed him because he was cheap and he needed more options for
the final third… and I’m not gonna lie to you, this wasn’t some fairy tale story
where he arrived at the club and blew everyone’s mind… no, but he did manage to play most
games over that first season and by the end of it he had managed to outscore Dzeko who
their scouts insisted was a must-buy, a future world class player, a diamond in the rough…
but what they didn’t realize was that Grafite was a diamond too and despite having just
turned 30 no one had actually attempted to shape him into his final form… until 2008….
in 2008…. well… something truly special happened…
By the 19th match day of the league season… despite having only managed to make 12 appearances
due to a fracture and some meniscus damage, Grafite had scored 12 goals already… But
despite that, Wolfsburg were only in 7th place… Though that didn’t stop some from believing
that with some slight changes, they could take things to a whole new level, as after
all they were only 9 points away from the top and of course… it was right then and
there that Dzeko, who by then had only scored 5 goals in 16 matches, began firing off on
all cylinders, going from being all over the place to being in complete sync with Grafite
and going an unbelievable run that saw him score 21 goals in 17 matches, which was still
not enough to overtake Grafite, as he would go a step further and pull off 16 goals in
13 matches over that same period, totalling out at 28 goals, 2 more than Dzeko and enough
to make him the league’s top scorer despite playing only playing 68% of the available
minutes, due to his ongoing fitness problems… it was unbelievable… Look, I cannot stress
this enough… these are all timer numbers… That year Grafite didn’t just perform at
a world class level, it was one of the greatest goalscoring seasons of all time… averaging
a goal every 74 minutes… he was only about 12% worse than either 2012 Messi or 2015 Ronaldo,
maybe their most devastating seasons ever…Owh and if you need a more recent example, he
scored at a rate that was 4% faster than Haaland this year… yeah… you heard that 100% right…
And I know… that’s all very impressive, but I actually haven’t even scratched the
surface… Because with Dzeko finally matching Grafite’s numbers, Wolfsburg hit the kind
of form a team like them only get to experience once in a century and began destroying every
one who came in their path… eventually leading them to a position where the top spot was
for the taking under one condition… they had to beat Bayern Munich in their next match…
63 minutes into the match, Wolfsburg and Bayern were tied at a 1 goal draw… it looked like
it would be a huge back and forth, with both teams fighting for every yard, hoping to get
a goal… but then 10 minutes later the Dzeko had scored 2, Grafite had scored another and
Wolfsburg were in front 4 to 1… It was already a gigantic humiliation… Bayern were drowning
in a sea of green and then Grafite hit back one more time and made it all that much worse,
scoring Wolfsburg’s 5th goal of the match and making sure it was quite simply one of
the greatest goals of all time… making a mockery of the Bayern defense, going past
the keeper and when it seemed there was no way to put the ball in the net… a backheel
sealed the deal… That year, Ronaldo won the first ever Puskas
award thanks to his thunderbolt against Porto… but according to Grafite, he was the one who
was picked first as the winner of the award… the only reason they ended up placing him
third and giving it to someone else was because someone at Wolfsburg ignored the letter they
got informing them their player had won… which meant that by the time they notice what
had happened, Grafite had already booked tickets to visit his family in Brazil and since back
then, in its first ever edition, no one could predict the Puskas would become so prestigious…
Grafite simply declined the award… Yeah, if you’re wondering, he does regret
it… big time… However, the story doesn’t end with that
match either… the month after that… with Wolfsburg holding on to a tight lead… Magath
announced he would leave at the end of the season, joining Schalke…
I'm gonna keep it real… this was awful timing, h e could have easily broken the team’s
momentum and ruined their whole season… but instead it was like the player’s were
trying to show him what a mistake he had made, showing him he should have stayed and built
a dynasty at Wolfsburg and so they finished the season, by demolishing Hoffenheim 4 nil,
Dortmund 3 nil, Hannover 5 nil and Bremen 5 to 1… with only a defeat to Stuttgart
in the middle of it all, you know to keep people guessing… Owh and, by the way, across
those 5 matches, out of the 18 goals scored, Dzeko and Grafite scored 16 of them…
As you might imagine, by the end of it all, Wolfsburg were Bundesliga champions… 2 points
in front of Bayern Munich… Grafite became the first ever foreign player to win the German
Player Of The Year award, which sounds hilarious… He also broke the record for most goals scored
by a foreign player and together with Dzeko he broke an even more impressive record…
the one for most goals scored by a duo in the history of the Bundesliga… and don’t
take this lightly… this wasn’t some irrelevant record, it had been unbroken for 36 years
since the legendary Gerd Muller and his partner Uli Hoeneb…
However I gotta take the spotlight away from those two for a second, because there is someone
else who always seems to go unnoticed who Dzeko and Grafite owe their records too…
That season, Msimovic was just as if not more impressive than them, pulling off 22 assists,
something only De Bruyne and Muller have ever managed to match… So yeah, since everyone
seems to forget him, I’m here to give him the praise he deserves…
Regardless, as I was saying…. On an international level, Grafite had become one of the hottest
players in Europe, finishing just 4 goals shy of prying the European Golden Boot from
the hands of Lionel Messi, everyone was hoping to sign him… Grafite himself claims he was
this close to joining Liverpool… but by the end of it all, Magath left and Grafite,
Dzeko, Msimovic and seemingly everyone else stayed…
However, while Dzeko kept scoring, pulling off 30 goals the following season… Grafite’s
form dwindled rapidly… settling for just 19, not even being capable of getting the
team to the european spots and watching as Dzeko got a 36 million euro move to Manchester
City while the interest any club had for him faded more and more… Even though to be fair,
something peculiar happened that year… With Brazil calling him up for the world cup…
They didn’t even call him up when he was at his peak but suddenly now they thought
it was the right time to do so… yeah it was odd…
Still, Grafite would stay for a fourth season at Wolfsburg, then 32 years old… watching
the team fight against relegation once more… as he looked completely helpless… managing
a mere 10 goals across all competitions… eventually, succumbing to the temptation of
securing one last paycheck and taking a move to Al Ahly…
After 4 years there, no matter how many awards he had won, not even his 63 goals in 79 matches
were enough for him to hold on to any of the relevance he once had… After years of struggling
for his 15 minutes of fame… Grafite had fallen into complete obscurity and except
for some German fans, the world of football had already forgotten about him…
After one year at Al-Saad, Grafite moved back to the club of his heart Santa Cruz and despite
being nearly 37 by then, you could sense that he was really trying to get back that feeling
of taking the world by storm… And so, despite going through 7 injuries in 2 seasons, after
managing to impress with 24 goals in a season and getting the team back to the top flight,
he terminated his contract and took a move to Atletico Paranaense, his one chance at
feeling that way again… But instead, all he got from that was 24 matches
without a single open play goal and a truck load of criticism… the world had looked
him in the face and told him to let go of his dreams… So, with his tail between his
legs, he moved back to Santa Cruz, only for the team to get relegated to the third division…
He even renewed his contract, hoping to get them back up, but only 20 days later he announced
his retirement… I don’t know what happened, but I do know one thing… He retired only
6 years ago… but when was the last time you heard the name Grafite?
