Wellington Silva

Wellington Silva left Brazil as a teenager: at the 2009 FIFA U-17 World Cup, he moved to England in 2010. He never made a Premier League appearance for the club, and the years that followed were a tour of Spanish football's lower rungs — loan spells at Levante, Alcoyano, Ponferradina, Real Murcia and Almería, plus a stint at Bolton Wanderers, kept him playing without ever settling.

The move that mattered came in 2016, when he returned to Fluminense. He was registered with the club during their 2010 Campeonato Brasileiro Série A title win, and back on home soil he found consistent form again, earning a place in the Campeonato Carioca Team of the Year in 2017. From there his career took him further afield than most: a spell at Internacional, then a switch to Japan with Gamba Osaka, a return to Brazilian football with Cuiabá, and a move to Saudi Arabia with Al-Najma.

Chinese football became the next chapter, first at Qingdao Hainiu and then, on a free transfer, at Chengdu Rongcheng, where he now plays as the right winger wearing the number 11 shirt. At international level, his story effectively closes where it opened — the youth ranks. Two caps for Brazil's under-21 side between 2014 and 2015 followed the U-17 World Cup exposure, but a senior call-up never came.