Adryan Oliveira Tavares (Adryan)

2014-2015 (Leeds Player Details)(Player Details)

Midfield

Born: Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: 10-08-1994

Debut: Rotherham United (a) (substitute): 17-10-2014

Height & Weight: 5ft 10 1/2ins 12st 6lb

Born in Rio de Janeiro, he started his football career Flamengo turning professional in 2007 and soon became known as a player of huge potential and was christened the next Zico, because of his associations with the club and later was talked of as being the next Kaka. He was capped by Brazil at all Junior levels from Under-Fifteen onwards. His potential was undoubted, and after helping Flamengo win the coveted Copa Sao Paulo de Juniores in 2011 he was then brought further into focus when he was a key member of the Brazil Under -Seventeen team in the 2011 World Cup in Mexico. in which Brazil came third. He played a full game in all but one of the seven games in which Brazil took part, scoring six goals. In the Group F games Brazil beat Denmark 3-0 on 20th June 2011, three days later it was Adryan who got the only goal of the game with a free kick in the seventy-sixth minute before getting Brazil's third goal with a right foot shot in the third minute of time added as they concluded their games in Round Robin Group games in Guadalajara with a 3-3 draw with Ivory Coast. Two days later they were again in Guadalajara for the knock out stages and eliminated Ecuador 2-0 to progress to the quarter-finals. This was played in Quetaro on 4th July 2011 and it was Adryan who scored the third Brazilian goal on the hour to gain a winning 3-0 lead with a left foot shot on the hour as the beat Japan 3-2, despite a desparate come back from their opponents. The one game he missed was the Semi-Final which was held three days later and, again in Guadalajara, Brazil went down 3-0 to Uraguay. The Third place play-off was played before over 94,000 spectators at the Azteca Stadium Mexico City on 10th July 2011 and despite Adryan giving Brazil a 2-1 lead from the penalty spot in the twenty-ninth and then increasing their lead to 3-1 with a left foot shot four minutes later, Brazil again faded after a bright start and went down eventually by 3-4. However his displays had brought him to the attention of the world at large and many top clubs sides, including Manchester United, sought to have him in their ranks. Soon after his World Cup success he was brought into the first team squad at Flamengo and was on the bench on 23rd July 2011 for the Serie A 1-1 home draw with a Ceara SC. It was, however, his only squad appearance for the season and it was not until the seventh game of the following season that he was next brought into the Flamengo Serie A squad, but on 1st July 2012 he was on the bench for the home fixture with Atletico Goianiense and he was brought into the team as a replacement for Wellington Silva for his first team debut. It got better as in the fifty -seventh minute it was his left foot shot that gave Flamengo a 2-1 lead and they went on to win 3-2. In the ensuing seven fixtures he started in the second of those with a run on debut at Esporte Clube Bahia on 15th July 2012 in a 2-1 away win in which he played fifty -seven minutes before being replaced by Diego Mauricio, and had taken his tally to one goal from four starts and four games from the bench. He scored a second goal for the season with a sixty-second minute free-kick to give Flemego a 1-0 lead after coming on as a half-time substitute for Luiz Antonio in a 1-1 home draw with Grêmio Foot-Ball Porto Alegrense on 16th September 2012 and by the end of the season he had scored twice in seven starts, sixteen games from the bench and had sat unused a further twice as he had already made himself a regular member of the squad. There were no goals in 2013 amd not so many minutes on the field of play as he started three and came off the bench eleven times and was left unused on fifteen occasions to make is first team tally with Flemengo two goals in ten starts, twenty-seven from the bench and eighteen games unused on the bench. He had also made two subsitute appearances in the Cup. Subsequent to the Under-Seventeen World Cp he took his goals to eight in fourteen appearances at that level an had gained three caps at Under-Twenty, but had not yet scored at that level. Contracted to Flamengo until 2014 he extended this to 2016 in March 2013. On 22nd January 2014 Adryan went on loan to Cagliari of the Italian Serie A for eighteen months. He was not included in the squad for the first game on 26th January against AC Milan, but came on as an eighty-third minute substitute for Mauricio Pinilla in a 1-0 home win over Fiorentina on 1st February, which was followed by two further games from the bench, coming on for Albin Ekdal in the seventy-fifth minute in a 0-1 away loss to Sampdoria eight days later and in the sixty -third minute for Marco Sau in a 1-2 home loss to AS Livorno a week later. He then made the starting team and on 23rd February in a 1-1 draw at Inter Milan he started and played fifty-seven minutes before being replaced by Sebastian Eriksson, after he suffered a thigh injury. A week later, on 2nd March, he gave way to the same player at half time after suffering a recurrence of the same thigh injury in a 3-0 win at home to Udinese. It was sufficient to leave him sidelined for the rest of the season and left him with two starts and three games from the bench to show for his first six months with the Sardinian club. On 30th August 2014 he became the thirteenth summer signing for Leeds United when the former owner of Cagliari, Massimo Cellino, negotiated the transfer of his loan from his former club to Leeds with a proviso that Leeds had an option to buy the player at the end of the loan period for £3million. He made his debut for Leeds at Under-Twenty-One level against Ipswich Town at Thorpe Arch on 8th September and soon impressed the Leeds coaching staff at that level with some scintillating displays, but to the middle of October he had still to make his first team debut. However, on 13th September he was an unused substitute in the 1-1 draw at Birmingham City and saw three further inclusions in the squad without being summonsed to the playing area, before on 17th October he came on as a sixty-second minute substitute for Lewis Cook in the 1-2 defeat at Rotherham United. He did make his starting debut in the subsequent game at Norwich City and he then started eight of the next nine games, missing only the game at Cardiff City through injury, and it seemed that he had cemented a regular place in the Leeds midfield. However, for the Boxing Day home game with Wigan Athletic he was omitted from the squad in favour of Michael Tonge. After that he fell out of favour, coming on as a seventy-ninth minute substitute for Tommaso Bianchi at Derby County before making what turned out to be his final starting game at Sunderland in the F.A. Cup. He did not make the squad for the game with Bolton Wanderers and the next time he was named in the squad was not until the home game with Millwall on 14th February 2015 when he remained unused on the bench. His only visit to the pitch was a fortnight later at home to Watford as a seventy-third minute substitute for Rodolph Austin and he failed to make the squad again apart from a solitary game as an unused substitute at Wigan Athletic on 7th March 2015. A player of undoubted talent he tended to overdo his reaction to being tackled and this caused him to become the source of ridicule for such antics and he was given the the "Fallon d'Floor" a dubious comical award as a parody of the Ballon d'Or, which would probably diminish any previous plaudits he had earned while at Elland Road. He left Leeds on 26th June 2015 and was signed on loan by French club Nantes.