Everton’s goalscoring hero against Fulham, Beto, expressed how much his stoppage-time equaliser meant to him after what he described as some really hard weeks without seeing any action.
The Portuguese was introduced as a late substitute with the Blues trailing to Alex Iwobi’s goal and he came up trumps at the death, heading home Ashley Young’s ball into the six-yard box to earn a 1-1 draw.
The emotion poured out of him when he scored, with a clenched-fist celebration and after the final whistle and he was filmed leaving the pitch in tears.
Beto has had to be patient for his chance up front. Since his last start for Everton, the disappointing home defeat to Southampton in the Carabao Cup last month, he hadn’t played a minute of Premier League football until he was thrown on today by Sean Dyche, with Michael Keane pushed up front as an auxiliary striker.
As he revealed in his post-match interview with Sky Sports, he has tried to keep his head up and wait for his opportunity.
“It means so much to me,” the Portuguese said. “I work hard. Even if I don’t play, I still work hard, I keep my head up every week.
“Every day I want to improve to be better [so] for me this means so much. To be able to help the team, it’s emotional, you know because it was hard.
“These last weeks were really difficult for me but God helped me, so here I am happy to score a goal. We didn’t win but at least we took a point.
“The supporters support me so much. Since the day I came here, they’ve been screaming my name — ‘Beto, Beto, Beto’ — and, as a player, you just want to pay it back.
“So I aways put in my mind, just be ready because the opportunity may come and today it came and I’m happy to help the team and to help the Toffees.”