Endrick's Journey: From Real Madrid to Lyon and World Cup Dreams

Endrick’s European education has not been gentle. It has been honest.

The Brazilian teenager, hailed as one of his country’s next great forwards, admitted the first steps at Real Madrid left him reeling. The talent was there. The stage was enormous. The dressing room? Intimidating in the extreme.

“The first year is always tough,” he told Men in Blazers on YouTube, laying bare the reality behind the hype. “You arrive at a club with players like [Luka] Modric, Vinicius, Rodrygo… It’s very difficult to play with all of them, but you also learn a lot.”

He did not walk into the Bernabeu and take over. He watched. He waited. He absorbed. The minutes were scarce, the competition relentless, and the weight of expectation heavy. That is where many prospects buckle.

Endrick went another way. He listened.

“I’ve been able to put everything I’ve learned into practice at Lyon,” he said. “And when I return I’ll be able to demonstrate it there.”

A support network of stars

What kept him steady was not just coaching sessions and tactical briefings. It was the human side of the superclub — the daily messages, the calls, the quiet words from players already living the life he is chasing.

“Bellingham calls me every day,” Endrick revealed. “When I was feeling down, he’d pick me up and we’d talk. He helped me a lot. Trent too. They’re very approachable players.”

Those are not minor names in the modern game. Jude Bellingham, already the heartbeat of Real Madrid. Trent Alexander-Arnold, one of England’s most influential players. For a teenager far from home, those conversations mattered as much as any training drill.

“I try to learn from them, including English,” he joked, “but it’s impossible to understand them.”

Behind the laugh sits a familiar story: a young South American dropped into Europe’s elite, trying to master not only a new level of football but a new language, a new culture, a new pace of life. The camaraderie inside that dressing room, he insists, kept him grounded.

Lyon, faith and a decisive step away

The real turning point came when he left Madrid — at least for now.

The move to Lyon could have been read as a step down, a pause in the script that had him fast-tracked to superstardom. Endrick never saw it that way.

“It wasn’t difficult to go to Lyon,” he said. “In the end, God told me I had to go, and I went. I wasn’t afraid; it’s been one of the best decisions of my life. I needed to play. I’ve been able to score goals, provide assists, and play a lot of minutes.”

That is the calculation every top club and every young prospect wrestles with. Stay, train with the best, fight for scraps of game time? Or leave, risk the spotlight dimming, but grow in the one way that truly counts: on the pitch, every week.

Endrick chose minutes. Chose responsibility. Chose a league where his decisions in the final third would decide games, not just training exercises.

World Cup dreams and Brazilian DNA

All of this — the struggle in Madrid, the education in Lyon, the phone calls from stars who already carry the burden of expectation — feeds into a bigger dream.

“Playing in a World Cup is the greatest thing,” he said. “Being able to represent my country is a dream come true.”

For a Brazilian forward, the World Cup is not just a tournament. It is a lineage. Pelé, Romário, Ronaldo, Ronaldinho. It is also a drought. “The World Cup is very important to people,” he noted, “and it's been a long time since we won it.”

If there is one figure who embodies that weight for his generation, Endrick believes it is clear.

“Neymar has Brazilian DNA. He's one of the best in our history.”

The teenager speaks with the reverence of a fan and the focus of a teammate-in-waiting, conscious that he is stepping into an era where Neymar’s influence will linger over every attacker who pulls on that yellow shirt.

Ancelotti’s trust and what comes next

Threaded through his story is one more crucial relationship: Carlo Ancelotti.

“I get along very well with Ancelotti,” Endrick said. “He's a great coach and understands you very well as a person. I know they have a lot of respect for me.”

Respect at Real Madrid is not handed out lightly. It is earned in training, in attitude, in how a player copes when the team sheet does not have his name on it.

Endrick has chosen to build that respect the hard way — by stepping away to play, to make mistakes, to turn potential into production. The Bernabeu will wait. The World Cup will not.

The question now is simple: when he walks back into that star-studded dressing room, will he arrive as a prospect, or as a forward ready to claim a place among them?