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Fourteen years old and more than 400 miles from home, Gabriel Magalhães decided that enough was enough. Uncomfortable, unhappy and consumed by homesickness, he packed his bags at Avaí FC, in the Brazilian city of Florianópolis, and made the long journey back to his family in São Paulo. Gabriel had been offered a permanent place in the Avaí academy, having impressed in a trial, but he did not plan to return. Never before had he been away from his family and, in that moment, football simply did not seem worth the pain. He was not even one of the star prospects at Avaí, who had only taken a punt on this gangly teenager because he was tall and left-footed. It was Gabriel’s father, Marcelo, who eventually convinced him to return, reminding his son of the scale of the opportunity he had in his grasp. After a week of thought, Gabriel picked up the phone to Diogo Fernandes, the football co-ordinator at Avaí. “He called me and asked us if we would take him back,” Fernandes tells Telegraph Sport. “We ended up saying yes. So he came back and started his story here, with us.” The story has a new chapter now: Arsenal. A deal worth around £25 million has been agreed with Lille, and one of the most exciting defensive players in European football is about to be added to Mikel Arteta’s squad, when the transfer is officially finalised as expected in the coming days. Commanding in the air, powerful on the ground, strong in the tackle: Gabriel appears ready for Premier League football, and a notoriously wobbly Arsenal are certainly ready for him. “He is a player we have followed for a long time,” said Arteta this week. The journey, though, has not been smooth. Those pangs of homesickness were far from the only difficulties faced by Gabriel, who has needed time, patience and — most of all — a considerable amount of luck to make it this far. His tale is one of resilience and courage, while his rise serves as a compelling lesson in the importance of making the most of your opportunities in life. “He was raw in his abilities,” says Fernandes, thinking back to when Gabriel first arrived for his trial at Avaí. “He was a boy who still needed to be shaped. When we first signed him, we were thinking about working with him so he could evolve with the rest of his age group. We did not lay eyes on him and think: ‘This guy will be an amazing defender.’ He was signed mainly because of a few traits: tall, thin and left-footed.”
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