Victor Andrade eyes Europe switch, Chelsea supposedly interested

Neymar's finally moved to Europe, so apparently it's time for the next Saga of the Brazilian Wonderchild to kick into gear. And once again, it's a Santos player who's turning heads -- 17-year-old Victor Andrade, who's being hailed as Neymar 2.0, mostly for team and position-related reasons than anything else. It's definitely not the hair, at any rate. Andrade has already played a full year with the Santos first team, and is apparently looking to move to Europe as quickly as possible:

Quite simply, I would love to play in Europe. My godfather Robinho has told me of the great experiences he had at Real Madrid, Manchester City and AC Milan. He told me how it made him a better player because playing in Europe means you must adapt to different styles and systems.

I think it will be a great education for me. Everybody around the world knows about the strength of the Premier League.

And many Brazilian players have done well when they have played in England. Players like David Luiz and Oscar at Chelsea and now Paulinho has gone to Tottenham to play alongside Sandro.

It is a very exciting prospect for me. My dream is to play for Brazil in the World Cup and I believe that moving to Europe will help me because it will help my all-round game.

-Source: Mirror.

While there's no sign of Chelsea being interested from Andrade's quotes, the Mirror are implying that the Blues are amongst three Premier League sides who'd be interested in signing the youngster. Fortunately, we shouldn't expect this transfer to be nearly as protracted as Neymar's -- Andrade's contract expires at the end of the season (in December), which means he'll be a free agent come the January transfer window, and perhaps Santos would be willing to sell now.

Andrade obviously isn't the talent that Neymar is, and he's still very raw and prone to making less-than-optimal decisions*. But you have to be an excellent player to play regularly for a Brasileiro team when you're 16 years old, and I'd be pretty interested in seeing Chelsea take a flyer on him, especially since he should be reasonably cheap. If we snap up Andrade, who turns 18 at the end of September, now he'll end up qualifying as homegrown.

*Unlike most 17-year-olds, then...

Consider my interest piqued. I don't know how likely Chelsea acquiring Andrade would be, considering that Arsenal and City are apparently also interested, but it won't hurt for Michael Emenalo to take a closer look. A buy would seem to be more along the lines of a Lucas Piazon signing than an Oscar, but Andrade's clearly got the potential to surprise.