Andreas Pereira is one of Fulham’s main highlights – AFP
Andreas Pereira is one of FulhamAFP’s main highlights
Published 03/01/2024 15:24
Rio – Former Flamengo midfielder, Andreas Pereira, who currently plays for Fulham, from England, was one of the new additions to Dorival Júnior’s first call-up to the national team, for the friendlies against England, on March 23, and in front of Spain, on March 26th. However, the curious thing is that the call to defend Amarelinha comes shortly after Belgium invited the player to join their team. In an interview with “ge”, Andreas, who was born in the country and played for Belgium’s youth teams up to under-15, confirmed that he received the invitation to play for the European nation again in mid-2023. However, he declined this invitation in hope of being called up again for the Brazilian team.
“They came to me at the beginning of the season and asked if I was willing to be called up by Belgium, they spoke to my agent too, and I always made it clear that my dream is Brazil. My dream is to play for the Brazilian team, nothing has changed and it won’t change. He told me to think about it, see how it will be, but leave a childhood dream aside just to play for a national team and not feel good…”, said Andreas.
“I’m Brazilian, my family is Brazilian, and playing for a national team just to say that I played for the national team doesn’t make any sense. I’m grateful to Belgium, for everything the country did for me, I grew up there, but I’m Brazilian and my dream It’s the Brazilian team. I’m going to fight until the last minute until that happens”, he added.
Despite playing for Belgium up to the Under-15s in 2015, Andreas was part of the Brazilian team that came second in the Under-20 World Cup. He was also called up to the Amarelinha main team once, by Tite, after the 2018 World Cup, in friendlies against the United States and El Salvador. Against the Caribbean team, he even entered the field and played for 20 minutes.