Willian Arão


Willian Souza Arão da Silva is a Brazilian footballer who plays for Brazilian Série A club Flamengo, as a defensive midfielder.
Arão started his youth career playing for São Paulo and Corinthians, where he had his first professional experience, although Arão spend most of his following years playing on loan for different Brazilian clubs. Including a very consistent 2015 season with Botafogo winning the 2015 Brazilian Série B.
In 2016 Arão was involved in a very complicated transfer to Flamengo with Botafogo complaining about the way their rivals approached the player. The situation is still to be solved in the Brazilian justice court.

Career

Formed in the São Paulo, Willian was the new reinforcement in midfield of Corinthians in 2011. Featured in the Copa São Paulo de Futebol Júnior in 2011, the player has good quality in the tackle and can exercise its left side.

Botafogo

On 10 January 2015, Willian Arão joined Botafogo on loan until the end of 2015 season. At Botafogo Arão had the best season of his career so far playing a total of 58 official matches, including 35 Série B matches scoring 5 goals, culminating with 2015 Série B title. He was one of the team most important players calling the attention of several other Brazilian clubs.

Flamengo

On 1 January 2016, Willian Arão joined Flamengo.
On 28 December 2016 Arão signed another three-year contract with Flamengo until December 2019.
In 2018 Arão lost space in the Flamengo's first team and the Brazilian press speculated a possible transfer. On May Internacional showed interest in signing him on loan, although the transfer didn't happened.
On 24 July 2018 Flamengo and Olympiacos agreed Arão's transfer for a sum of €2,5 million. A few days later, the transfer was canceled, since Arão and Olympiacos could not agree on how his salary would be paid.

International career

On 19 January 2017 Arão was called up to the Brazil national team for the first time to play a friendly match against Colombia.

Career statistics

Club

International

International appearances and goals

Honours

Club

;Corinthians
;Botafogo
;Flamengo