Following the departure of Antoine Semenyo, Bournemouth required reinforcement in their attack.

They found their replacement in Vasco da Gama’s 19-year-old prodigy, Rayan, for whom they paid €28.5m.

The Brazilian debuted for his boyhood club as early as 2023, at age 17, but it wasn’t until last year that he became a regular starter.

He started 32 games, scored 14 goals, and gave one assist in the Brazilian first division.

Add the different cups Vasco participated in during 2025, and his goal tally is up to 22.

Numbers like that for a teenager in a league of Brasileirão’s dignity will attract interest from clubs higher up in the football food chain, and if it wasn’t Bournemouth, another club in a European top-five league would acquire Rayan for a similar fee.

In this Rayan scout report, we will examine Rayan’s role and performance at Vasco da Gama, whether he is a good fit for Bournemouth, and whether the Cherries made the right call in making him their sixth-most expensive signing ever.

Rayan Stats

When judging his stats, it’s important to note that Rayan has shared minutes between right wing (70% of total minutes in the league) and centre-forward (30%).

Where Bournemouth plan to use him long-term is hard to know, but I’m assuming he’ll have the best chances of minutes short-term as a winger, given the squad moves this winter, although he masters both positions.

Rayan Winger Pizza Chart 2025

Above is a pizza plot of Rayan’s performance in the Brazilian top-flight in 2025, compared with all other wingers who played at least 900 minutes.

What stands out positively is one thing, and one thing only: his willingness to shoot.

The 19-year-old is in the 91st percentile, and only beaten in that regard by a handful of other players.

The rest of the numbers?

Average or, quite frankly, bad. 

We notice that he has a lot to work on when it comes to his shot locations.

40th percentile for xG per shot is hardly ideal, and a lot of his shots come from distance when he’s cutting in from the right to pull the trigger with his left foot.

Sometimes with success, but often they end up in nothingness.

He also has an alarmingly low amount of touches in the box, and they aren’t any better when he plays as a striker.

In a winger context, his 1v1 ability doesn’t stand out.

That isn’t his biggest strength by any means.

However, when playing centrally as a centre-forward, it becomes more of a problem for opposing defenders.

Compared to his positional peers, he’s approaching the 90th percentile in both successful dribbles and progressive runs (as shown in the pizza plot below), indicating that he’s dangerous when receiving the ball and attacking the centre-backs.

Rayan Centre-Forward Pizza Chart 2025

His shot volume is slightly down as a centre-forward, still high though, but his xG per shot is up significantly, which is a promising sign.

When playing centrally, Rayan tends to clear his sometimes-sloppy shots from the right side of the pitch and move into better shooting positions closer to the goal.

Although he needs to get more involved in the penalty area, otherwise it will be hard to maintain the xG numbers.

An underrated quality of the young Brazilian is his aerial game.

He isn’t fantastic, but he is above average and is a threat in the attacking box, as well as someone the opposition centre-backs need to consider as a threat when used as a focal point up front.

Even if Rayan can be utilised as a target-man, it’s not what he usually does, and not what he should mainly do.

Instead, his most common pattern of movement as a centre-forward is to drop out towards the right side.

Ultimately, all players want to do what they do best, and for Rayan, that is to drive toward his opponents and try to find shots.

In the screenshot above, the teenager drops a bit into space.

He eventually receives the ball, and a few seconds later, he’s got past Corinthians‘ No. 14, who fouls him from behind. 

In another sequence from the same game, Rayan has found space far out on the right side.

Once again, because of enough space to attack an opponent, and with a lot of ground to run into, he’s often successful. 

He takes the man on…

…and skips past him to eventually create a good chance for Vasco.

Both these sequences came when Rayan was deployed centrally, so if Andoni Iraola intends to utilise him there at Bournemouth, he should allow the Brazilian to roam from time to time.

Otherwise, you lose some key parts of his game.

However, Bournemouth would also benefit if they created even more situations for Rayan where he thrives.

One of them is the deep runs in behind, so he can run against isolated centre-backs, with and without the ball.

Although he has those qualities, he’s often too interested in receiving deeper or out wide, so the deep-runs in-behind get neglected.

A successful example, however, was when Vasco faced Fortaleza away in the league last season.

The hosts have just had an attack deep into Vasco’s half, but when the guests win the ball, it takes just a few seconds for them to score a goal on the other side of the pitch, mostly due to Rayan’s powerful stride, which makes him very hard to stop.

When Rayan plays as a right winger, the patterns are a bit simpler.

Because the only thing he does with frequency, which he often does quite well, is to receive wide (or slightly inside), take the ball inside towards his left foot, and pull the trigger.

In this case, the goalkeeper eventually saves the shot, but no matter what, the supporters at the Vitality Stadium will see this a lot.

Conclusion

Rayan is an interesting prospect due to his performance in Brazil at such a young age, but also because of his spectacular qualities.

He’s 1.85m tall, has a powerful body, is a powerful runner, and has a powerful shot. 

Bournemouth welcome a fun player, but what are the chances of him succeeding?

As of now, he still has to improve a lot.

14 goals is an impressive tally for league goals only, but he overperformed his xG massively.

0.4 goals per 90 (0.35 non-penalty goals) versus 0.26 xG per 90 (0.22 non-penalty xG).

A big chunk of his goals came through screamers from outside the box, and even though he is a great finisher, very few players can escape the regression to the mean.

This means he either has to continue to overperform his xG significantly or improve his xG.

However, he doesn’t have the best underlying data to improve his xG, given his low share of touches in the box.

Now he needs to do it in the best league in the world.

The Brazilian would probably benefit by being told not try to get too much involved in his team’s possession.

Most often it ends up with shots from bad locations, and if there’s one thing Rayan needs to do, it’s to stop taking too many bad shots from distance and shoot more closer to the goal.

If he were a good creator, it would make more sense to continue allowing him to drop into central areas or constantly receive out wide and cut in, because they’d believe he could add something to their chance creation and then didn’t need to obsess about him as a goal threat.

However, Rayan is a below-average creator, so he needs to be told to play more of his game closer to the goal.

Otherwise, I don’t see him having a future in the Premier League.

With that said, Rayan’s physical qualities make him special.

So special that Bournemouth gamble on them being able to refine his game while keeping the undeniable qualities he already has.

Will they succeed?

My guess is yes.