Gabriel Jesus’ form at Arsenal can help him banish memories of failure at 2018 World Cup to help Brazil in Qatar
GABRIEL Jesus arrived at Arsenal with his career at the crossroads. It is early days.
But the evidence so far is that the confidence being shown in him is helping to bring back the player of 2017.
It is worth remembering where Gabriel Jesus was five years ago. Brazil had been in trouble in qualification for the 2018 World Cup.
A third of the way through the marathon competition they were outside the automatic qualification slots.
Still a teenager, Gabriel Jesus was thrown in the deep end - not as a wide striker, which he had been when Brazil won gold on home ground in the 2016 Olympics, but in the problem position at centre forward.
He was an immediate success, and qualification turned into a prolonged victory parade.
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And he hit the ground running when he joined Manchester City, even putting Sergio Aguero on the bench. And then…
His subsequent career has not been disastrous.
But for years he came nowhere near living up to the hopes that seemed so realistic back in 2017.
It is easy to identify where everything went wrong - the 2018 World Cup.
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Premier League fans may not realise just how important the World Cup is to a Brazilian.
In 2014, still an unknown youth player, Gabriel Jesus was just one of millions of his countrymen, decorating his street with bunting and murals in preparation for the biggest event in the life of the nation.
And then, four years later, he was there in Russia leading the attack. Badly. Suddenly he lost form.
In an attacking team he failed to score a goal in the competition - considered a disgrace for a Brazil centre forward - and after the tournament coach Tite made it public that he wished he had dropped the striker.
All of this was a huge blow to his confidence, a trauma from which he has not fully recovered.
Indeed, there is only one place where he can fully recover - Qatar in November and December.
But competition for places is fierce. And Gabriel Jesus has not helped his own cause.
When pushed, he told Tite that he would rather be considered as a wide striker than a centre forward - running away, perhaps, from the scene of the disappointment in 2018.
And at City he could never entirely convince anyone that he could take over from Aguero.
The signing of Erling Haaland was the death knell for the idea that the Brazilian was going to be City’s long term number nine.
With his confidence shot, he was playing for Brazil - but making little impression. He scored in the final of the 2019 Copa America.
But more than three years later, it remains his last competitive goal for his country.
After that he started four friendlies, four games in last year’s Copa America and seven World Cup qualifiers, plus four more off the bench - all without a single goal.
At the start of June the drought finally came to an end.
In stoppage time of a friendly against South Korea, with Brazil already 4-1 up, he danced across the defence to score.
But, again, he had come off the bench, and with attacking options appearing, his place in the World Cup squad was by no means guaranteed. He needed a change.
It is clear that the move to Arsenal did not happen overnight. Coach Mikel Arteta knows Gabriel from City.
Director of football Edu knows him from the Brazil national team, where Edu was previously on the coaching staff.
They know their man, what he can do - and what he needs.
An operation took place to seduce him, to make him feel important, to fill him with confidence.
They were not signing the player who somehow managed to go 19 games for Brazil without scoring.
They were signing the prodigy from 2017 - full of youthful promise, but now a little bit older and wiser.
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They knew what they wanted from him, and he was sufficiently enthused to want to supply it.
So far things could hardly have gone better. But it is early days. Definitive views on the resurrection of Gabriel Jesus will surely have to wait for Qatar.