Barca Transfers and Rumors
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Messi983
Senior Member
The best talents from Uruguay and Ecuador usually end up in Europe. And it's not like Brazilians or Argentinians also don't go to MLS.
My point was Brazilians are usually much more expensive than players from other SA countries but not always also end up better players.
For example Ecuador players who came to Europe for cheap over last three years (BTW all are product of a famous Independiente del Valle academy)
- Piero Hincapie - joined Bayer for around 6m in 2021 from Argentinian club Talleres who have bought him a year before from IDV for around 3,5m.
- Willian Pacho - Royal Antwerp signed him for 5,5m in January 2022 and sold him to Eintracht Frankfurt last summer for 9m
- Moises Caicedo - joined Brighton for initial fee 5m in 2021. IDV also received 20% of fee when he was sold to Chelsea.
And then you have Kendry Paez who will join Chelsea next year when he turns 18 for a reported fee 20m.
Now some comparable Brazilian youngsters:
- Lucas Beraldo - joined PSG for 20m in January
- Andrey Santos - (Chelsea/15m) or Danilo (N. Forest/20m)
- Endrick - will join RM for initial fee 45m
Are Brazilians really that much better to command double/triple the price or are you mostly paying the "Brazilian tax" here?
Now ofc there is a difference between joining a top club directly or going to a 2nd tier teams like Brighton or Bayer before making the next step but new Hincapies, Caicedos or Paezes will probably come out of IDV academy or other Ecuadorian clubs. And I don't see any reason why we shouldn't find and sign them for affordable prices when they will.
Messi983
Senior Member
Not talking about quantity of talents they produce but rather corelation between cost and quality of Brazilian players compared to Argentinian ones (there is a difference here too) and to other "smaller" countries.
With Brazilians you often pay for their "hype" and then they don't end up elite players. Uruguayans and Ecuadorians are usually cheaper and so less risky transfers if they don't turn out as good as you hope. And sometimes you can also find an absolute steal like we did with Araujo.
companyofcules
Well-known member
Put Oriol vs Mbappe 1 v 1 in space or vs Isco and the stats melt.
Never trust stats except for attacking players( as a needed requirement not as the only criteria). Stats matter maybe in a league vs low tier teams. In UCL they just melt as in EL Clasicos or vs Juventus, Atletico to name a few cases.
Stats measure confidance or continuity not quality. Quality is measured by 1v1 actions, acts of prowess. That's why Bartomeu was an idiot. He ignored the dismal ball control of Dembele and lack of finish for some nonsense stats. He ignored the lack of performance in huge games by Griezman for stats and that he is not a striker. As Xavi ignored the dismal performances of Lewy in huge games. Clutch players are essential for huge teams. That's what sets apart start of 2000 Barcelona from late 2000 Barcelona. You can have all the tactics, if your players are dead in 1 v 1. We dominated Real in early 2000 too, but Raul and Zidane vs average talents was too much to handle.
Off course I agree we are looking for a midfielder but we should keep in mind that his role in a team that is constantly exposed on space and has more tactical players than strong men needs to be more of a hard core one. I actually liked Vidal from our last DMs, but for some reason we used him very little in that role.
I should write a guide to avoid tiki-taka collapses in the future and economic meltdowns. I am not Cruyff but I saw in 30 years what works and not.
In my opinion Busquets worked for 3 years in UCL, lacking a hard core destroyer is one of the reasons we were mauled by many teams. If this guy is so good at causing pain and taking the ball we should get him and for the easy games in La Liga we have La Masia to spawn a tehnical DM.
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companyofcules
Well-known member
Usually Argentina produces 2-3 dribblers but once in 15-20 years, Brazil produces fast players with good dexterity and knowledge of the game in tons.
There is a difference of race, body types, culture, history.
Putting all South America together is wrong. Uruguay is just a small europoid country so has little chances to produce talents.
So I will not call it a hype. Brazil can suply every team in Europe with good wingers and inside forwards from top to 4th divisions. All of them are good and talented but not all of them are in the same category. Attackers are more expensive, attackers with good dexterity are even more expensive so that is what you call a hype.
Now of course there is once every 5 years a new Pele. R9, Ronaldinho, but I wouldn't call it a hype since Neymar, Robinho, Vini, and Endrick were very special talents.
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companyofcules
Well-known member
The definition of a hype is Bellingham. Decent player and very professional portrayed by the English media as some new balon d'or sensation and the future greatest of all time Real Madrid player.
Hype is making fake statements not saying the truth that is not necessarily a guarantee for success.
Hype is making fake statements not saying the truth that is not necessarily a guarantee for success.
Don Juan Laporta Estruch
Well-known member
You can add another 5 or 6 English players to that. Watching them try to play football without being helped by their foreign club teammates is absolutely hilarious.
A failure in the Euros is coming and we all know what will happen ... Southgate will get the blame. Because the manager always gets the blame to cover up for the overrated players. Even Capello got the blame. If Klopp becomes the next manager, they will lose again and Klopp will get the blame.
Anything to cover up the inconvenient truth that the players are really not that good. They lack the flair and x factor it takes to win at the very very highest level. Nobody in the England squad, before or since, has an ounce of x factor compared to even the likes of Neymar, let alone players like Maradona, Messi, R9 etc.
khaled_a_d
Senior Member
5M isn't a pocket change for a prospect signing, that is exactly my point. Barca wanted F.Diaz for 3M which is fair price tbh he ended up sold for 8M.
Every player you mentioned is 5M+ player, who is taking steps to prove his worth in Europe, Brazilian players actually plays in one of the strongest leagues in the world and they can play from the go to go.
Barca is clearly looking under each rock to find cheap talents, Darvich cost 2.5M, Faye for 1.5M. I.Diara is essentially costing us nothing and most likely Oduru will follow steps. Every expensive talent we tried to get we essentially failed.
And I am not sure why pointing out to Brazilian market? We signed only 2 Brazilians under Laporta, Raphinha and Roque. Both were first team players from the go to go, Roque might be success or not but he is in no way comparable to players "we can find in Uruguay or Ecuador".
If Barca finds a Roque or Messinho in Ecuador or Colombia we would be in the race for it
PS: Yes, Brazilians are indeed far better, with only Argentina comes close but even then they come close only at the top end not in the amount of quality players, Brazil after all has half the population and far bigger economy of SA
Messi983
Senior Member
I'm not against signing Brazilians but at the same time I think the quality of players they produce nowadays has dropped significantly compared to 10-15 years ago. Prices went up though in this overinflated football market (started with PSG but now mostly thanks to a financial power of EPL but that's for another debate). So now you often pay more for less quality. Ofc that is valid for most players on the market but I think my point that Brazilian talents cost more despite not necessarily being better players than comparable talents from other countries still stands.
Raphinha is irrelevant for this discussion as he was signed as a "proven EPL player" (and overpaid as one) in his mid twenties and not a teenage talent.
As you could see from my posts I like Roque and think he can turn into a very good player. But question here is could we find a similar talent in Uruguay who is known for their production of strikers? Maybe not right now but in some moments the right talents will emerge. You just have to "be there" when they do. Few years ago a certain Darwin Nunez joined Almeria for 5m. Suarez was already on his last legs at that time. Now I won't pretend I knew Darwin before he joined Almeria (our scouts doing their job properly should though) but I wanted to sign him before he went to Benfica after watching him in Segunda. Even Suarez reportedly suggested the club to sign him. Instead we wasted 20m on Braithwaite. Would Darwin succeed here? Maybe. Or maybe not given how impatient our fan base is. But I know I'd rather have him than Braithwaite.
Or maybe, just maybe we could have signed that Argentinian Alvarez lad, I've heard he's pretty good. Right @soul24rage ?
Mentioning F. Diaz, would you prefer to pay 8m for him or 15m for Andrey Santos for example? One went to collect money in Qatar (probably listening to a bad advice of his agent) early in his career but will probably still move to Europe soon and the other joined the club who is just hoarding talents without a clear plan how to use them. But that's irrelevant from a Barca perspective now that none of them is here. What's important is if our scouts graded both players similarly (ofc we'll never know that) then why buy Santos if you can get Diaz for less? Especially in current state when every million is important. Before Covid 5m or 20m was "the same" for Barca, now not anymore.
Raphinha is irrelevant for this discussion as he was signed as a "proven EPL player" (and overpaid as one) in his mid twenties and not a teenage talent.
As you could see from my posts I like Roque and think he can turn into a very good player. But question here is could we find a similar talent in Uruguay who is known for their production of strikers? Maybe not right now but in some moments the right talents will emerge. You just have to "be there" when they do. Few years ago a certain Darwin Nunez joined Almeria for 5m. Suarez was already on his last legs at that time. Now I won't pretend I knew Darwin before he joined Almeria (our scouts doing their job properly should though) but I wanted to sign him before he went to Benfica after watching him in Segunda. Even Suarez reportedly suggested the club to sign him. Instead we wasted 20m on Braithwaite. Would Darwin succeed here? Maybe. Or maybe not given how impatient our fan base is. But I know I'd rather have him than Braithwaite.
Or maybe, just maybe we could have signed that Argentinian Alvarez lad, I've heard he's pretty good. Right @soul24rage ?
Mentioning F. Diaz, would you prefer to pay 8m for him or 15m for Andrey Santos for example? One went to collect money in Qatar (probably listening to a bad advice of his agent) early in his career but will probably still move to Europe soon and the other joined the club who is just hoarding talents without a clear plan how to use them. But that's irrelevant from a Barca perspective now that none of them is here. What's important is if our scouts graded both players similarly (ofc we'll never know that) then why buy Santos if you can get Diaz for less? Especially in current state when every million is important. Before Covid 5m or 20m was "the same" for Barca, now not anymore.
vuji_31
Senior Member
I doubt Laport or anyone cares if talent is from Brazil, Argentina or Peru.
We will get we can. I like this strategy of bringing cheap talents and free players.
We need to hit jackpot again with LW or DM and in 2025 we are good, because there is many free players in market, and hope so we will recover finance
again.
We are still biggest brand in terms of selling shirts and getting tv rights.
We will get we can. I like this strategy of bringing cheap talents and free players.
We need to hit jackpot again with LW or DM and in 2025 we are good, because there is many free players in market, and hope so we will recover finance
again.
We are still biggest brand in terms of selling shirts and getting tv rights.
khaled_a_d
Senior Member
As you could see from my posts I like Roque and think he can turn into a very good player. But question here is could we find a similar talent in Uruguay who is known for their production of strikers? Maybe not right now but in some moments the right talents will emerge. You just have to "be there" when they do. Few years ago a certain Darwin Nunez joined Almeria for 5m. Suarez was already on his last legs at that time. Now I won't pretend I knew Darwin before he joined Almeria (our scouts doing their job properly should though) but I wanted to sign him before he went to Benfica after watching him in Segunda. Even Suarez reportedly suggested the club to sign him. Instead we wasted 20m on Braithwaite. Would Darwin succeed here? Maybe. Or maybe not given how impatient our fan base is. But I know I'd rather have him than Braithwaite.
Or maybe, just maybe we could have signed that Argentinian Alvarez lad, I've heard he's pretty good. Right @soul24rage ?
Mentioning F. Diaz, would you prefer to pay 8m for him or 15m for Andrey Santos for example? One went to collect money in Qatar (probably listening to a bad advice of his agent) early in his career but will probably still move to Europe soon and the other joined the club who is just hoarding talents without a clear plan how to use them. But that's irrelevant from a Barca perspective now that none of them is here. What's important is if our scouts graded both players similarly (ofc we'll never know that) then why buy Santos if you can get Diaz for less? Especially in current state when every million is important. Before Covid 5m or 20m was "the same" for Barca, now not anymore.
Santos is far better talent than Diaz tbh, he made wrong choice going to Chelsea who doesn't have a plan, but this is more clear now than a year ago, but he is far superior player and is 2 year younger.
Brazil produces the likes of Roque, Endrick, Vini, Rodrygo on consistent basis, Uruguay produces a Suarez or Cavani or Darwin every generation or so, Uruguay rarely has more than 4 players starting in top European clubs, Brazil usually has couple of dozens.
And Barca generally has good scouting network in SA, but the question is about what type of talent you are targeting?
There is the first category, the cheap ones that cost a million or two, the 2nd category are those who cost significant money that is fairly cheap, like 5-15M, then there is the 20M talents, and there is the super expensive ones.
Barc simply fails in the 2nd and 3rd category due to financial constraints, and this is my points regarding "focusing on Scandinavia, Uruguay, Argentina etc" because we will be always outbid. And due to the MLS and other leagues, South American leagues now are more or less out of first category, doesn't seem we will get an Araujo or Bueno for cheap anymore, not under current financial constraints.
We missed on Alvarez tbf, no counter argument here, but it was more due to wanting a more established player for first team as we were desperate for CL success, we will never know if Alvarez would have had same success under Xavi as he does with City.
But the only player we went for that was worth anything more than 3M and we got was Roque, and that was mainly because we had massive admirer of his in Deco and scouting department all agreed on his worth.
When/If the financial situation turns better, I am all for putting more emphasis on the other markets, but now it seems we get players based on financial constraints more than anything else
@khaled_a_d , @Messi983
There was an article about the guy running recruitment for the B team. Him and his network are doing an excellent job.
The B team are doing great of recent and have been shrewdly signing young talented players who walk in and excell at the category.
And of course Marquez deserves credit too, but not so much credit that they replace Xavi with him
It would be nice if we could add a little more rocketfuel to this to be able to get a little more higher potential talents (it's the exception and not the rule to be able to get Darvich and Faye for under 5m for example).
Clearly the Barcelona coaching platform will develop these talents very well. And if we take the example of Andrey, he would likely be way further along the curve here.
About the lower tier recruitment strategy (Uruguay, Scandinavia, etc) the question is what quality are we actually getting? For example we just let Ilias go for free and he is now proving to be a LaLiga level player. For that 5-10m are we getting better than Ilias?
There was an article about the guy running recruitment for the B team. Him and his network are doing an excellent job.
The B team are doing great of recent and have been shrewdly signing young talented players who walk in and excell at the category.
And of course Marquez deserves credit too, but not so much credit that they replace Xavi with him
It would be nice if we could add a little more rocketfuel to this to be able to get a little more higher potential talents (it's the exception and not the rule to be able to get Darvich and Faye for under 5m for example).
Clearly the Barcelona coaching platform will develop these talents very well. And if we take the example of Andrey, he would likely be way further along the curve here.
About the lower tier recruitment strategy (Uruguay, Scandinavia, etc) the question is what quality are we actually getting? For example we just let Ilias go for free and he is now proving to be a LaLiga level player. For that 5-10m are we getting better than Ilias?
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