With three goals in the competition to date, Pedro Neto is currently Chelsea FC’s top scorer at the FIFA Club World Cup 2025™. The pacey playmaker previously played for a Portuguese outfit called Palmeiras and, during a separate spell on the Iberian Peninsula, was handed his professional debut by none other than Abel Ferreira – current coach of the Brazilian giants of the same name, who will face the Blues in the quarter-finals of the global extravaganza in the USA.

Confused yet? Perhaps FIFA can help.

Neto may never have played for Palmeiras, the Sao Paulo-based powerhouse set to trade blows with Chelsea at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia this Friday, 4 July, but he has turned out for Palmeiras FC, a small club from the district parish of Palmeira in the northern Portuguese city of Braga.

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How did Pedro Neto end up at Palmeiras FC?

Portugal’s Palmeiras FC recently won the Série B da Segunda Divisão do Campeonato Distritalde Iniciados (a district-level U-15 competition) and have had a youth development partnership in place with Primeira Liga side SC Braga for many years, allowing Braga’s U-16 prospects to spend a portion of their formative years at Palmeiras. One player to have trodden that very path is Francisco Trincao, the Sporting CP star and one of Portugal’s brightest hopes in the lead-up to the FIFA World Cup 26™.

That was also the track taken by Neto, who joined Braga’s youth academy at the age of 13 before being sent out on loan to district neighbours Palmeiras at 15. Though brief – lasting just under a year – the stint forged a somewhat curious link between the Chelsea winger and the Palmeiras name and crest.

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The link between Portugal's Palmeiras FC and Brazil's Palmeiras

In 1965, a group of friends got together to set up a football club in Braga’s district parish of Palmeira. One of those friends had emigrated to Brazil before returning to Portugal. Possibly inspired by the early years of Palmeiras’s historic Primeira Academia (First Academy) in 1960’s Brazil, the Portuguese had a bold idea.

He suggested establishing a team called Palmeiras (in Palmeira) with a crest based on that of their illustrious South American counterparts. The inland Portuguese club are said to have written a letter to Brazil’s Palmeiras with a formal request to use their name – a proposal that received a green light in return. Their nominal bond has now been cast into the limelight 60 years later.

Portuguese tactician Ferreira, formerly of SC Braga, arrived at the Paulistano powerhouse club in 2020 with the mission of leading Palmeiras to the Brazilian Serie A title. Like Neto, Ferreira was already familiar with another club called Palmeiras, not least because his nephew had played for the side in the lower echelons of the Portuguese pyramid.

“We all have plans in life, but life also has plans for us,” Ferreira told CONMEBOL a few years ago, referring to the connection between the two Palmeiras teams that have been part of his footballing journey.

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In 2021, when Ferreira’s team reached the CONMEBOL Copa Libertadores final for the second consecutive season and defeated CR Flamengo to lift the continental crown – the title that granted Palmeiras their berth at the Club World Cup 2025 – their homonymous counterparts on the other side of the Atlantic were inspired by the circumstances and reached out once again.

In addition to organising a local meet-up in Palmeira to watch the Copa Libertadores final with over 200 fans, they also sent a letter to their Brazilian namesake club.

“They responded warmly and even expressed their surprise because they didn’t know we existed,” said Benjamim Correia, the Portuguese club’s president at the time.

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Ferreira gives Neto his chance

In July 2016, Neto had returned to Braga, his parent club, but one thing was missing: he hadn’t yet signed a professional contract with the club. As recalled by Antonio Salvador, Braga President, and Joao Aroso, former Braga B coach and now assistant coach with Korea Republic:

“He had real talent; we wanted to put him in the B team when Ferreira took over the senior set-up [and I took over the B team], but due to the nature of the contract negotiations, we had to wait for the powers that be to decide his fate. Braga wanted to renew his contract because he was very gifted,” Aroso told FIFA.

In 2017, Salvador told Portugal’s Lusa news agency that, “Barcelona and a host of top English clubs were after him. I spent days convincing Neto’s parents that it’d be best for him to stay on at Braga and that his future would be much brighter if he did so. The message resonated with his parents, and their decision to follow the advice soon reaped its rewards: Ferreira called him up, and Neto never looked back.”

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Destined for greatness?

Neto made his debut for Braga B under Aroso on 7 May 2017. Exactly one week later, the then-Braga head coach Ferreira called him up for his first professional duel, during which he put the icing on the cake by converting his side’s fourth goal in a 4-0 triumph over Nacional. Not a bad debut for a 17-year-old.

“I sensed a great maturity [in Neto], I felt that he showed something different from what you could expect of a lad his age,” said Aroso. “He oozed maturity and confidence in the way he spoke.”

The youngster only featured twice more for Braga’s first team. On 31 August 2017, he was loaned out to Lazio, before then swapping Italy’s Serie A for the English Premier League when he signed for Nuno Espirito Santo’s Wolverhampton Wanderers and subsequently secured a move to Stamford Bridge last summer.

The stats don’t lie – in addition to being the Blues’ top scorer at the Club World Cup so far, having found the net three times, he has also attempted the most crosses (23) and received the most balls between the midfield and defensive lines (81). Next up, Neto will have to confront his Portuguese past in the form of a reunion with Ferreira and Palmeiras – only this time, it is the Brazilian juggernauts at the Club World Cup.

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