One for Dane ......looking at Europe is great .... but what about South America ?

Watching the Watford v Middlesbrough game.
Young 18 year old Brazilian centre forward called Pedro - cost £2 million.
A brilliant player.
There’s some gems on that continent but Barnsley dosen’t seem to have a presences there.

 

Miguel Mossto
Anderson da Silva
Dennis Souza
That Uruguayan lad, scored against Leeds
Jeronimho?

 

Yes we seemed to have good links to South America.
What happened ?

 

There is absolutely no way Barnsley would pay that much for an 17 yr old, and to be honest, I would not want them to either. Whilst I agree he looked good in phases, it is a big risk to take.

 

Robledo's

 

Maradona - 17 year old - they wanted £450 k for him - Diego said he had signed for Sheffield United.
Then the Blunts pulled out of the deal - they said they didn’t want to pay that much.
They then got Alex Sebella instead for £160k.
Which were nice ....... but not that nice.

 

Diego Arismendi

Forgot about him

Remember the bizarre own goal he almost once scored where he lobbed Luke Steele, about 45 yards out from his own goal? At home to Reading IIRC.

 

Hugo Colace. I quite liked him. He weren’t half bad

 

How did they get a work permit for a 17 year old Brazilian?

 

Took a year for his permit to come through, only played 3 games last season, no way we are gonna pay £2 million for a player based on that(nor should we).
South American football also have well established links with Dutch and Spanish teams traditionally, so it’s not that cheap a market to work in and the stats are not as readily available as others and is more reliant on traditional scouting systems.

 

So negative.
What you are saying there is - it dosen’t matter who we can get from South America - it dosen’t matter if it’s the new Maradona or Pele - we don’t want them !!!

 

No what’s he’s saying is, we as are club are not currently in a position where we can afford to spend £1m in a South American player that due to the work permit rules in the UK we couldn’t even play for 12/24 months... the reason these players end up in Holland/Spain/Portugal is the working restrictions aren’t as restrictive as the UK.

Now if we can find a gem with dual nationality who would walk straight into our team I’m sure we’d all be up for that

 

He's saying that as a small club we don't have an unlimited pot of cash we can spend investigating every male on the planet to see if they're any good so we have to focus our attention on the area which gives the highest return for the lowest cost.

 

No don’t think I said that did I?
Read it again and you will seeI said I don’t see a justification on spending £2 Million on a player who you have to wait a year for and then only plays 3 games in a year. Irrelevant of what country he comes from that’s not value for money and a luxury we can afford.
I would rather we spent the £2 million on a player who could play this season.
To suggest we could unearth a new Pele just because they come from South America is also a tad ridiculous(someone with that talent could come from anywhere).

 

Radio times top 10 footballers of 2020 has 3 south Americans, 1 African and 6 European players.

Futballnews has a similar list which has 2 South American, 2 Africans and 6 European players.

Sportbible has a list of the 10 best performing players of 2020. It has one South American and 9 European players

 

I think it is always a big risk to sign young players from South America, because it can be very difficult for them to settle in England, where the language and culture are so different. Studies have shown that a key factor in producing one's best form is the need generally to feel happy and settled and not to be constantly yearning for the homeland. European players often come from similar cultures to that in England and many of them have a reasonable knowledge of English.