Real Madrid's forward line got even more crowded this week, but Endrick's answer was about as loud as it gets: a goal inside 12 minutes on his first pre-season appearance, in a game his side went on to draw 2-2 with Fiorentina.

The backdrop is a squad reshuffle up front. Gonzalo García's departure to Fulham looked, briefly, like it might open a route back into José Mourinho's plans for the young Brazilian. Instead, Real Madrid moved fast to replace him, activating the release clause to sign 21-year-old Carlos Espí from Levante on a deal running through June 2031, ONE reports.

With Kylian Mbappé an undisputed starter through the middle, Espí's arrival means the competition for minutes behind him is as fierce as ever — a dynamic ONE described as working "like a food chain": the moment one forward leaves, another leaps to seize the opening.

Endrick, for his part, chose not to complain. He had returned to Madrid only days earlier following a loan spell at Lyon and Brazil's World Cup campaign, and needed just three training sessions before Mourinho threw him into the Fiorentina friendly.

He made the most of it. In the 12th minute he controlled a ball into the box and finished left-footed for the opener, then stayed on for more than 70 minutes despite his evident lack of match sharpness.

"This is a fantastic effort with a lot of meaning," Mourinho said afterwards, according to ONE. "I told him thank you for what he gave us."

The friendly, played in Klagenfurt, Austria, ended level after Fiorentina scored twice in the second half to cancel out Madrid's early lead. Espí himself made his Real Madrid debut off the bench, coming on in Endrick's place.

It is a small return fixture in the context of a career that has stalled since Endrick's big-money move from Palmeiras two years ago. He managed only sporadic appearances under Carlo Ancelotti and then Xabi Alonso, and a hamstring injury kept him out for months before the loan to Lyon was arranged last December — a spell in which he found something closer to his best form.

Real Madrid attached no obligation to buy when they brought him back this summer, and with Mbappé and now Espí both ahead of him in the pecking order, Endrick's path to regular football at the Bernabéu remains narrow. But as ONE put it: don't eulogize him yet.