Ricardo Goulart
Team: Guangzhou Evergrande
Age: 25
Position: Attacking Midfielder/Striker
Nationality: Brazil
Former team: Cruzeiro
Brazilian Ricardo Goulart started his career in Serie B club Santo André. He made his debut for the first team in the 2009 season in Serie A as the team had gained promotion the season before. He made his debut in July against Corinthians and played a total of 14 matches and scored one goal. Unfortunately, Santo André were relegated from the top division.
The following season Santo André were relegated again, down to the Serie C and before the 2011 season Goulart was loaned out to Serie A side Internacional.
Here, he played ten matches, starting only twice as Internacional finished fifth. Ten matches might not sound a lot but, he usually had to fight his way past Oscar (yes, that one) and Zé Roberto (not that one) the former Schalke player and journeyman who has seemingly been at every single Brazilian top club.
Following the end of his loan at Internacional Goulart, now 21 years-old, was sold to Serie B club Goiás.
At Goiás he finally got some regular game time, playing 34 times and scoring 12 goals. Goiás got promoted and Goulart could return to the top flight in a team where he could get regular game time.
But the return to Serie A was not going to come with Goiás. In January of 2013 Brazilian giants Cruzeiro wanted his services. He came on to play 12 minutes in the first game of the season as Cruzeiro won 5-0. The team on the receiving end of that thumping? Goiás.
In total, he played 33 games that season and scoring ten goals as well as assisting another five. After starting the season on the bench, it didn’t take long until he found himself in the starting XI as the season went on. In the end, he started a total of 28 matches, most of them playing on either wing as Cruzeiro won the league title.
In his last season in Brazil, he once again helped Cruzeiro win the league and they got to the quarter-finals in the Copa Libertadores. He played a total of 35 games that season and scored 19 goals in all competitions.
This season also saw him get his only cap for Brazil to date, he came on to play the second half in a friendly against Ecuador in October 2014.
In January 2015 Guangzhou Evergrande bought Goulart for £12.75 million from Cruzeiro. He immediately became a vital part of the Evergrande squad as he scored on his Champions League debut against Seoul, his second match for the club. In total, he smashed in 27 goals and assisted 16 in 42 games in all competitions as Guangzhou won both the league and the Champions League.
Last season saw him produce almost the exact same numbers as he scored 28 goals and provided 11 assists in 46 games. Despite going out in the group stages in the ACL, they won the treble taking the Super Cup, the FA Cup, and the Super League. Goulart scored both goals in the 2-0 Super Cup win over Jiangsu Suning.
This season Goulart has been on fire. He is the current joint top scorer with after the first eight matches, with seven goals alongside the Guangzhou R&F’s Eran Zahavi