Joao Pedro's 31-Second Goal Ends Chelsea's No9 Curse — and It's a Lifetime in the Making

Thirty-one seconds. That's how long it took Joao Pedro to score Chelsea's first Premier League goal of the new season, chipping Fulham goalkeeper Bernd Leno at Craven Cottage after a first-time pass from Cole Palmer (The Sun). The goal put Chelsea 1-0 up and, according to The Sun, ended the club's so-called No9 curse — the long-running failure of strikers wearing that shirt to consistently deliver.

It was also Chelsea's first Premier League goal under new manager Xabi Alonso (Sky Sports). Not a bad way to introduce yourself to a new era.

The road to that chip started a long way from west London. Joao Pedro grew up in Ribeirao Preto, a nine-hour drive inland from Rio de Janeiro, raised largely by his mother, Flavia Junqueira, and his grandmother. His father, Jose Joao de Jesus — known as Chicao, a former Botafogo footballer — spent around eight years in prison after being charged as an accessory to murder and was rarely around during his son's early childhood (BBC Sport).

Junqueira separated from Chicao and focused everything on her son's footballing potential. When Fluminense, one of Brazil's leading clubs, scouted him, she left her job, her friends and her family to move to Rio. Joao Pedro cried a lot on the journey there and in the weeks that followed, homesick and adrift. At the Fluminense academy, he was told he wasn't strong enough and would not make it.

His mother's response was to hire a personal trainer, Rodrigo Goncalves, despite her increasingly limited means. Joao Pedro, who like his father had started as a defensive midfielder — a player who protects the back line — before moving further forward, pushed through. He became one of the stars of the academy.

Watford's South America scout Rafa Monfort spotted him next. A phone call from Richarlison, then at Watford and now a Tottenham striker, who had made the same journey from Brazil to Hertfordshire, proved crucial. Joao Pedro had been hooked on Premier League football as a child, and the move appealed. It took around eight months to meet the Governing Body Endorsement criteria — the points-based system that determines whether a player qualifies for a UK work permit — but his family arrived in England in December 2019.

Then-Watford goalkeeper Heurelho Gomes, also Brazilian, took them under his wing and bought them Christmas dinner. During the Covid lockdown that followed, Joao Pedro trained relentlessly with Goncalves, gaining around eight kilograms of muscle and reshaping his body for the Premier League.

Joao Pedro moved from Brighton to Chelsea at the start of July 2025 (Chelsea FC). His first goal for the club came against Fluminense — the very side that once told him he wasn't strong enough (Chelsea FC). Last season, an overhead kick against Nottingham Forest won Chelsea's Goal of the Season award (Chelsea FC).

What makes the 31-second chip land differently is everything that came before it. Junqueira told BBC Sport she gave her son one thing: to fight for what you want, all the time. Every snap of the net carries that instruction with it.