The history of Hapoel Beer Sheva with Brazilian foreigners is not really full of successes. The biggest name imaginable was William Suarez, the one who was Vitor before he was Vitor – but more or less, that’s it. And now, Be’er Sheva is betting on a new foreigner from the same country, who will try to change the paradigm – Farley Rosa, who played at the beginning of the season in El Fujaira from the UAE. So who is that player? What will he be able to contribute to Be’er Sheva? And what can his life story teach us about the foreigner who will try to rehabilitate the club from the Negev capital?
Farley Vieira Rosa was born in Santo Antonio de Jacinto, Brazil. “My city was very small,” he said in an interview with Tema Sports (a website in Greece) in April last year. “Like a village. Much smaller than Agrinio (the city where Panatholikos, the team he played for at the time) came from, and it was very difficult to play football there. There was no money, no infrastructure. But football in Brazil is everywhere: we played in the streets, with stones as beams.” Then, came a ‘talent hunter’ named Emerson (no, we have no ability to find out if it was ‘that Emerson’ from the Brazilian national team, but yes a former footballer – who roamed these neighborhoods to look for talent).
“Emerson built a kind of academy with us, and taught us how to play,” Rosa said. “I started at the age of seven, along with some kids. By the age of 11 he and my dad took me to Cruzeiro, in Belo Horizonte. I played there for two years.” The next stop was Sporting Lisbon, back in its teens. He was there for six years, in what he defined (and also proved in reality – after all, this is the place that raised Cristiano Ronaldo) as “a team that has everything to cultivate new talent, just like Ajax, Barcelona or other teams.” But when his professional career began, the painful reality knocked on the door.
Rosa signed in Sevastopol, a large city located in the Crimea, then – another part of independent Ukraine. In February 2014, in the middle of that season, Russian President Vladimir Putin decided to “return Crimea to Russia” – and the war began, in which within a month the peninsula was conquered. “I arrived before the war,” the winger said. “But there weren’t too many problems in the year and a half I was there. It was a big city, with a big stadium with a lot of people, and I had a good time there. But when the situation went towards war, I realized I had to leave.” Sevastopol, by the way, does not exist today.
After that, he took the walking stick – returned to Brazil, to the Monte Azul team, but was loaned back to Europe, to teams like Apollon Limassol and AK Larnaca. Also in El Itifak (Saudi Arabia), he returned to Atromitos, and in the summer – as mentioned – he signed with El Fujaira. He did not record many appearances in all these teams, but – as can be learned from the highlights he issues – left quite a bit of football behind him.
Performance videos (as you can see above) can sometimes be misleading. They show, by definition, only the glamorous moments of the actor. Still – a few things can be identified in the video from last season: Rosa, who plays on the left wing, is definitely light-footed, with a great right-footed kick, and high technical ability that allows him to produce – an area where Be’er Sheva is a bit lacking, when Joshua is taken out of the equation ( And as you know, Joshua is out of the equation for a long time to come. Maybe forever). The relative speed and ability to cut to the middle, despite the fact that he is not an outstanding conqueror – will be able to help Be’er Sheva, whether in former attempts or assists for strikers.
Rosa is a believing person. Like quite a few Brazilian players, he is also very attached to Jesus – and even wears after games a shirt that reads “I Belong To Jesus” (I belong to Jesus, in free translation). “Everything I do is for Jesus,” he said in that interview in Greece. “He has changed my life, my family, my relationships. All my celebrations and goals are for him. I pray every day, and everything I do is for heaven’s sake.” Days will tell if Rosa will really go for water, but in the situation of Hapoel Beer Sheva – faith is never a commodity worth underestimating.