Corinthians product among Europe’s top three Brazilian centre-backs | OneFootball

Last Saturday (28), Sofascore, a sports statistics app, released a survey in which center-back Murillo, developed in Corinthians’ youth academy and now playing for Nottingham Forest in England for more than two years, is listed among the three best Brazilian Under-23 defenders in the five main European football leagues – England, Spain, Germany, France, and Italy.

Despite standing out in the Premier League since his arrival, the defender has still not been called up by Italian coach Carlo Ancelotti. On the platform, within the criteria mentioned at the start of this article, Murillo is the Brazilian center-back with the second-highest rating (6.98). He trails only Lucas Beraldo of PSG in France, who came through São Paulo’s youth academy (7.33). Third place belongs to Vitor Reis, who is owned by Manchester City in England but is on loan at Girona in Spain, with a rating of 6.84.

Photo: Rafael Ribeiro/CBF

Murillo has been called up to the Brazilian National Team only twice, both times by Dorival Júnior, who has been in charge of Corinthians since late April 2025. The 23-year-old player was included in Brazil’s squad on two occasions – once in 2024 and once in 2025, when he featured in the 4-1 loss to Argentina in Buenos Aires in the 2026 World Cup Qualifiers.

Recently, there had been expectations that he would be called up. Arsenal center-back Gabriel Magalhães was ruled out through injury even before Brazil’s two friendlies against France and Croatia during this first FIFA window of 2026. However, Carlo Ancelotti chose to call up Vitor Reis, once again leaving Murillo out. Since the Italian took charge of Brazil, another 12 defenders have already played for the national team.

Murillo joined Corinthians’ youth academy in 2019 after standing out at União Barbarense, becoming part of the Under-17 team, and played in the 2022 and 2023 Copinha tournaments wearing the Corinthians shirt. Across the Under-17 and Under-20 levels, he scored six goals in 83 matches. He made his professional debut in April 2023 and quickly became a starter.

In total, he played 27 matches for the first team (26 as a starter) before being sold to Europe for 12 million euros (R$ 64.4 million at the time) in August of that same year. The club from Parque São Jorge kept 10% of the capital gain (profit on sale) from any future transfer involving the player.

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This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇧🇷 here.