Should we just stop buying South American Players? | oops

devilish

Juventus fan who used to support United
Joined
Sep 5, 2002
Messages
63,975
Back in my first years at redcafe I was a staunch SA player fan. Brazil was the equivalent of today's Spain and I couldn't understand why some supporters wouldn't want SA players at United as they were clearly superior in terms of creativity and technique to the average British talent.

Since then we've signed these players

Fabio and Rafael Da Silva - injury prone. The former was hardly ever useful for us
Forlan and Kleberson - not good enough
Anderson and Falcao - waste of space
Di Maria and Veron - good talent but they wanted to leave United after few months
Rojo - it still early days but he does look like an average defender
Heinze - SAF used him as an example of what a mercenary player would look like
Henriquez - never played for United first team
Tevez - excellent player who left United in bad terms
Valencia - meah player who was decent in his early years with us

Considering this negative record should we call it a day and opt signing players from other parts of world instead of them (when possible)?
 
Last edited:
We're probably best building our squad primarily from Britain and Northern Europe (France, Netherlands, Scandi, Germany etc), with the odd South American and Spaniard/Italian added in.
 
This would have all been different had Kenyon just paid the money for Ronaldinho quickly instead of trying to save a few million.
 
MikeUpNorth said:
We're probably best building our squad primarily from Britain and Northern Europe (France, Netherlands, Scandi, Germany etc), with the odd South American and Spaniard/Italian added in.
Click to expand...

We've got a decent record with Spanish players. Valdes and Ricardo were hardly given any chance to shine (2nd choice keeper and all), Pique showed promise before leaving United, Mata and Herrera did fairly well with us and DDG is world class.
 
Sylar said:
This would have all been different had Kenyon just paid the money for Ronaldinho quickly instead of trying to save a few million.
Click to expand...

Indeed!
 
Sylar said:
This would have all been different had Kenyon just paid the money for Ronaldinho quickly instead of trying to save a few million.
Click to expand...

God knows if he would settled down. Anderson was rated a bigger talent than Rooney by SAF's brother. We all know how that turned out.

We also dodged a bullet by not signing Celio Silva
 
South Americans like sunshine.. have you ever been to manchester? The only sunshine is the one coming out of a blue moon supporters mouth
 
Perhaps we should just limit it to buying strikers. Tevez may have been a twat but he was a great striker for both us and City. Then there's Aguero, Suarez and Sanchez who have all proved their worth in the Premier League.
 
Plenty of South Americans have made it in the Premiership, so unless there's something particular about about club that I can't see then it seems we've just had some bad luck.
 
No.

If Neymar became available for example, you wouldn't want him because he's south american?
 
Of that list, im probably saddest about Veron. I honestly think he was a player that came to us 5 years too early. Would have like to have seen a prime him in a 451/433 for us. There was also a period of like 4 months where he was brilliant for us. Him and p.Neville in midfield as well haha

devilish said:
God knows if he would settled down.
Click to expand...

All I know is it would have been Ronaldinho playing off Ruud. :drool:
 
English football doesn't have too much of a profile in South America. There, La Liga is king. Barca and Real are historic institutions that it would be an honour to play for. The likes of United are just rich clubs who can provide a decent wage but are not seen as the pinnacle of the sport. I think that's the issue. United will often only attract mercenaries looking for a pay day, whilst the top European sides will get the cream of the crop. That's not to say we should stop buying South American players, btw. We just need to keep doing it for a few more years until the club is seen as being as prestigious as the Spanish big two. It'll take another decade at least, but we'll get there.
 
I just don't think South American players recently have been as of high a standard and somewhat relying on the South American reputation. Bar a few i.e Suarez, obviously Messi, Aguero the players a tier below are always over hyped.

If we had bought Ronaldo back in the day he would have been a hit no two ways about it.
 
Dante said:
English football doesn't have too much of a profile in South America. There, La Liga is king. Barca and Real are historic institutions that it would be an honour to play for. The likes of United are just rich clubs who can provide a decent wage but are not seen as the pinnacle of the sport. I think that's the issue. United will often only attract mercenaries looking for a pay day, whilst the top European sides will get the cream of the crop. That's not to say we should stop buying South American players, btw. We just need to keep doing it for a few more years until the club is seen as being as prestigious as the Spanish big two. It'll take another decade at least, but we'll get there.
Click to expand...

There are other things that may impact their game including the physicality of the EPL and the weather
 
No, because of your list and the law of averages the next one is a winner!
 
devilish said:
Back in my first years at redcafe I was a staunch SA player fan. Brazil was the equivalent of today's Spain and I couldn't understand why some supporters wouldn't want SA players at United as they were clearly superior in terms of creativity and technique to the average British talent.

Since then we've signed these players

Fabio and Rafael Da Silva - injury prone. The former was hardly ever useful for us
Forlan and Kleberson - not good enough
Anderson and Falcao - waste of space
Di Maria and Veron - good talent but they wanted to leave United after few months
Rojo - it still early days but he does look like an average defender
Heinze - SAF used him as an example of what a mercenary player would look like
Henriquez - never played for United first team
Tevez - excellent player who left United in bad terms
Valencia - meah player who was decent in his early years with us

Considering this negative record should we call it a day and opt signing players from other parts of world instead of them (when possible)
Click to expand...

No we shouldn't as the various players listed didn't succeed or fail because of their geographical origins. In most instances they didn't succeed because they may have not been the right individual fit for us.
 
Or, when we bring them we should not try to transform them into something else, like we did with di Maria, Anderson, Falcao.

If we stop signing them because they are injury prone, it would mean we should not sign players at all.

When it comes to average players, the same point as the above one could be applied.
 
Neil_Buchanan said:
Plenty of South Americans have made it in the Premiership, so unless there's something particular about about club that I can't see then it seems we've just had some bad luck.
Click to expand...

A combination of bad luck with having selected poorly imo. Heinze, Forlan, Tevez, Veron, Di Maria, and Falcao were completely appropriate based on talent and ability alone, but not on temperament. The likes of Ando, Kleberson, Possebon, etc were simply poor selections on our part.
 
Raoul said:
No we shouldn't as the various players listed didn't succeed or fail because of their geographical origins. In most instances they didn't succeed because they may have not been the right individual fit for us.
Click to expand...

I dont think that geographical reasons are the main reason why they had failed. Its more the case of their way of football + the weather didnt help. For example I have full faith that Periera will make it
 
Seriously though it's puzzled me how the weather/city factor is so significant with United but City and Liverpool don't have such problems.
 
Like you said, Tevez and Heinze were very good players for us, it was unforeseen personal disagreements that led to them leaving under clouds. Tevez is a complete prick as we all know so that's hardly surprising, Heinze lost his place to Evra and tried to move to Liverpool :lol:

Valencia has been a very good player for us overall. He was actually very dangerous and very consistent at first, a lot more than just "decent"
 
Boycott said:
Seriously though it's puzzled me how the weather/city factor is so significant with United but City and Liverpool don't have such problems.
Click to expand...
Maybe the players we get dont have the right mentality?

It hurts me how good and seemingly loyal Aguero is to City.
 
Yeah non of this south American rubbish like tevez give me a team full of bebe's and Liam millers instead.
And whatever happens don't buy messi whilst Peter crouch might be available... Afterall he is proven on wet wednesday winter nights at stoke
 
RedStarUnited said:
Maybe the players we get dont have the right mentality?

It hurts me how good and seemingly loyal Aguero is to City.
Click to expand...

Might've been very different if his house got burgled a few months after arriving!
 
You can make the same argument for European players:

Taibi - Our worst keeper
Cryuff - Flop, failed to impress after a solid Euros
Ronaldo - Wanted to leave for Spain
De Gea - Ditto
Berbatov - Like Veron, flashes of brilliance but couldn't fit into team
Saha - Injury prone
Tosic - Never good enough
Zaha - Poor attitude
Bebe - lol

Should we stop buying European players?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.