No you didn’t. Your vastly superior logic of buying a player at £50m rather than developing that player after a £5m fee means I will leave you to it.
Why don’t we scout Sao Paulo and other Brazilian clubs instead of overpaying feeder clubs?
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik @Rood and Imran @Annihilate Now! start with the good news by celebrating Manchester United Women's emphatic FA Cup win over Spurs at Wembley and the future of manager Marc Skinner.
Then it's the bad news and the ever worsening form of our Men with losses to Arsenal and Palace.
Finally the main debate - ETH Out now or keep him until the end of the season - if not longer. Are you Team Nik or Team Imran?
Again at which point did I make that suggestion?
I would say a few of the issues raised are not such a big problem.
I don't buy that attracting young lads from Brazil is a problem. And obviously it's not just Brazil, it's the entire continent - South America is always producing ridiculous talents and there are plenty to go round. I think if you have a real presence on the ground and develop the networking you can easily attract them.
The work permits may or may not be a problem, I don't know the intricacies of that but it's worth considering.
I think the single biggest problem is do we have the platform to integrate them into European football? It's easy to say "loan them out" but in practice it's really not so easy to find a supportive environment that will develop them. Our feeder clubs are not of the quality, and many clubs don't want to develop someone else's player. If they do, they're often telling you what they want you to hear just to speculate on a player only to not play them when they realise they're raw. You are putting all your eggs in the basket of another club with your multi million pound prospect. If you keep them at the club are they getting any football or are they going to play youth football at a significantly worse level than the South American League they came from?
Compare and contrast that with the situation in Portugal where they have the language skills, the culture, easy permits, a lesser league that gives these players time and space to find their feet and you start to see why their success rate would be so good for providing a pathway.
I don't buy that attracting young lads from Brazil is a problem. And obviously it's not just Brazil, it's the entire continent - South America is always producing ridiculous talents and there are plenty to go round. I think if you have a real presence on the ground and develop the networking you can easily attract them.
The work permits may or may not be a problem, I don't know the intricacies of that but it's worth considering.
I think the single biggest problem is do we have the platform to integrate them into European football? It's easy to say "loan them out" but in practice it's really not so easy to find a supportive environment that will develop them. Our feeder clubs are not of the quality, and many clubs don't want to develop someone else's player. If they do, they're often telling you what they want you to hear just to speculate on a player only to not play them when they realise they're raw. You are putting all your eggs in the basket of another club with your multi million pound prospect. If you keep them at the club are they getting any football or are they going to play youth football at a significantly worse level than the South American League they came from?
Compare and contrast that with the situation in Portugal where they have the language skills, the culture, easy permits, a lesser league that gives these players time and space to find their feet and you start to see why their success rate would be so good for providing a pathway.
I think Atletico and Valencia would both have wanted to keep their talented young players regardless of the transfer fee's.
Rodri for £60m aged 23 and Torres for £20m aged 20 would both be seen as cheap buys looking back. Although they're not playing for an obscure team, they do match buys like Evra and Vidic who were diamonds hidden in plain sight.
I approve of signings like that for us too. I cited Malacia as the type we should always go for. Players who haven't yet hit the big time or are world renowned for decent fee's.
I don't think anyone would argue today that Antony is cheap or value for money today but he was 2 years ago at Santos. I'd rather we took the gamble two years ago when he was linked with us before he moved to Ajax.
Ajax are the smart money in this deal and United are the dumb money.
We were linked to him in the media around the same time we were linked with Antony. Both looked clear good signings and Calceido even came recommended by Antonio Valencia.
We could have signed him and Antony for under £25m then.
Now we'd have to spend £130m minimum to land them both two years later. Rangnick was the last hope for me to go for that type of player at that stage of their careers.
Ten Hag hopefully has more time ahead of next summer to go and get that type of signing.
Isn't it survivorship bias to an extent?
Looking at Antony and saying we should buy players directly from Brazil is a bit like looking at Ed Sheeran and surmising that strumming generic tunes on a guitar is the surest bet to wealth. Think of the millions of aspiring singer songwriters who never make a cent. Likewise think of the hundreds of hyped players across the globe every year who never end up at a high enough level to play for a side with PL winning aspirations.
Adnan, Andreas, Petrucci, Daelhi were all massively hyped when we signed them. How are they doing now? Even the surest of sure bets within South America have question marks. Remember that when Neymar was at Santos there was a kid named Ganso playing for Brazil underage sides with him who was seen as just as great a talent. How's he doing now?
Ultimately signing young players is intrinsically risky regardless of where they are from. It may seem wasteful but paying big money for the finished article is usually cheaper than signing young talents who generally don't fulfill their potential.
Looking at Antony and saying we should buy players directly from Brazil is a bit like looking at Ed Sheeran and surmising that strumming generic tunes on a guitar is the surest bet to wealth. Think of the millions of aspiring singer songwriters who never make a cent. Likewise think of the hundreds of hyped players across the globe every year who never end up at a high enough level to play for a side with PL winning aspirations.
Adnan, Andreas, Petrucci, Daelhi were all massively hyped when we signed them. How are they doing now? Even the surest of sure bets within South America have question marks. Remember that when Neymar was at Santos there was a kid named Ganso playing for Brazil underage sides with him who was seen as just as great a talent. How's he doing now?
Ultimately signing young players is intrinsically risky regardless of where they are from. It may seem wasteful but paying big money for the finished article is usually cheaper than signing young talents who generally don't fulfill their potential.
60m was his clause and Torres was on the last year of his contract. But the point is that we have similar signings every years those are regular signings, there is nothing special about them. I genuinely don't get why your are trying to label them as different when they aren't different to United signing Dalot or Bruno for similar fees at similar ages.
Bruno was 25, but nobody is saying Bruno was a bad signing. In fact many people wanted him a year/transfer window earlier.
The same with Dalot. Good signing and value for money. It's the Sancho's and Antony signings which fans might have issues about when they were available years prior for a fraction of the fee's if we'd have gone in or gone in stronger.
Class of 92 was special but that was an outlier and not the norm for United. The other clubs mentioned both produce and develop young talents on a consistent basis year after year.
As for the loan part I also agree. An example of that is actually Martin Odegaard. He ended up “making it” but Real Madrid was such a dumb move for him at 16. Imagine if he had gone to Ajax instead for example, I reckon he would be much better then he is now because he had/has world class talent.
But that's the thing. The Sancho and Anthony are like the Grealish and Haaland or the Dembélé and De Jong or the Tchouaméni and Jovic. The point being that the club you used as example aren't examples of what you described, they sign players for a fortune from clubs where these players have been developing.
Because those players arent United quality without the development they get at feeder clubs.
Development we can't provide because we (are supposed to) perform at a higher level.
We can afford to buy the finished product. Our problem is that we sign shite instead.
Development we can't provide because we (are supposed to) perform at a higher level.
We can afford to buy the finished product. Our problem is that we sign shite instead.
The same applies to Fabinho who was nowhere near playing regularly for Real Madrid, he was extremely lucky that Luis Campos ended up becoming a DOF and brought him on loan from the Spanish third division and even then he had to rely on injuries to get an opportunity.
Yep, what helped Fabinho was the move to Monaco which had a host of talent at the time and allowed him to develop properly. Right situation and right time.
Of course! Sporting CF - better than scouting!
Yeah Martin nearly killed his career by going to RM. Its not entirely unlikely that Haaland had that in mind when he himself went to Salzburg. Ødegaard played for what, 3 differnt clubs and Real Madrid B squad under Zidane for his formative years. That is a lot of disruption. Instead of just focusing on football, he had to spend energy on mundane things like settling into a new group of players, moving cities, uncertainty about next year etc. Having that knowledge that your path is clear and its all up to you is invaluable
He had loans to Vitesse, Heerwnaveen, and then sociedad in 3 years. That cycle alone could have butchered his career.
One straight move to Ajax at 17 and he would have been at a top level club by the age of 20-21 and at a higher level.
Not a lot of guys make it out of a situation like Odegaard but at 16 he was blinded (his dad mostly) by the media attention of signing for Madrid and the big money involved.
Haaland has literally got all his moves right, Molde-Salzburg-Dortmund-City.
Natural progression which went up in level each time and they were all great career moves.
Odegaard and Haaland are probably already the two best players in the history of Norway and easily the most talented that country has ever produced IMO.
The all time top scorer before Haaland was 25 goals or something like that, just to put into perspective the gulf in class.
Like Ibrahimovic until Barcelona. For all the criticisms that Raiola got, his clients made sensible moves from a Football stand point, rarely did they found themselves in places that made no sense. I wouldn't say the same thing about Mendes.
That requires some thought, foresight and planning which we don't currently possess.
Glazers out.
Mendes only cares about $ and himself. That’s the difference.
To be fair, Benfica, Porto and Sporting are the best outsourced LatAm scouting you can get
You make it sound like Real Madrid is a death sentence for a young player. Please explain Vinicius, Valverde and Rodrygo who all arrived plenty young down there. Marcelo
Varane, Casemiro also arrived there fairly young and ended up doing “all right “ I think most would say.
Maybe it was Ødegaard that was the problem and not the club?
Real Madrid noticed we could no longer compete with oil clubs or Premier clubs so we started signing young guys all around the world and stars in last year of contract, and so far it's still working but last season was almost like a movie when we were smashed by all rivals in Europe until we came back in the last 5 minutes Rocky-style when we were dead with tons and tons of massive tons of luck. But apart from luck, PSG, Chelsea, City and Liverpool overplayed us completely, meaning that not even scouting the world 24x7 we can guarantee anything.
We got our last 5 champions league cups with very cheap squad. Casillas 0€, Navas 10M, Carvajal 0€, Ramos 27M, Varane 10M, Marcelo 6M, Casemiro 6M, Modric 36M, Kroos 25M, Benzema 36M, Morata 0€, Di María 25M, Valverde 5M, Vinicius 45M, Rodrygo 45M, and the expensive ones didn't work, Hazard 120M, James 80M, Jovic 60M, Illarramendi 40M, Kaka 60M, only Cristiano was wort it for 100M (thank you sirs). And Bale 110M so-so. Great first years and a son of a b... the last ones.
Also, many of those young guys dodn't work, such as Odegaard 6M, Kubo 10M Asensio 5M and many others that you didn't get to know.
We are happy with the way the club is buying and selling, we are happy for the 80M of Casemiro and many other good sales right on time. The best scouts in Europe are Porto and Seville.
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Didnt we have an affiliation with the Brasilian club that the Da Sliva twins came from? What happened to that?
I would say that it's both the player and the club.
First it needs to be said that Real Madrid have one of the best youth system in the world and they know how to develop players. Now these players often don't have the opportunity to play much for Real Madrid and have to leave relatively early.
In the case of Vinicius or Rodrygo, they both benefitted from positive circumstances, after 2018 Real Madrid had room and somewhat lessened expectations due to the aging of the team and kind of sudden departure of Ronaldo. That gave Vinicius chances to play, play relatively poorly but still get game time and develop into the player that he is today, the same somewhat applies to Rodrygo and Valverde. For Marcelo he had a clear path to game time since Roberto Carlos was on his last legs in 2006.
That's why it's both, if these players join Real Madrid a couple of years sooner, they likely end up like Odegaard, Mata, Eto'o, Illaremendi, Callejon and many others who eventually reached levels that would make them good enough for Real Madrid but it wasn't the case when they were around and Real Madrid had no direct path or incentive to create those paths.
cause we are constantly playing catch up.
We need someone to make an impact
The amount of baloney being posted in this thread on the Brexit / work permits issue encouraged me to create an account on here to reply.
In a nutshell - with the FA's new post-Brexit regulations it is actually much easier to sign youngsters playing in the Brazilian and Argentinian leagues directly to an English club once they are 18 - providing they have played fairly regularly for their clubs in the previous year. e.g. If a youngster in the top Brazilian or Argentinian leagues has played 80%+ of their side's minutes then they'll get a work permit.
Even if they've played a slightly lower percentage than 80%, there's still a decent chance they'd qualify due to additional ways of obtaining points.
For players at 50-80% of their teams' minutes, even just one of the following can tip them over the edge in meeting the work permit criteria: they played in a major youth international tournament, e.g. U20 World Cup or Toulon; they played a decent percentage of minutes for their club in the Copa Libertadores or Copa Sudamericana; they made their first team debut in the last 12 months; their club finished high enough in their league to qualify for the Copa Libertadores or Copa Sudamericana (usually top 8).
The player can only come to the UK once they are 18 and if they meet the above work permit criteria. However, hypothetically English clubs might also sign a player at 17, if they're confident that once they've turned 18 they'll still meet the above work permit criteria.
The full FA document is here:
FA Work Permit Criteria PDF
A decent summary of some key points is here:
https://worldfootballindex.com/2020...e-post-brexit-english-clubs-efl-libertadores/
I would encourage this post to be stickied in this thread, or people discussing the issue going forward to take it on board/refer back to it, because there is so much misinformation already on here.
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makes sense. Completely forgot Brexit
Actually yes you can send them to the likes of Twente or Anderlecht, and it's even quicker and easier than when "an EU residence permit" was something they needed to move to England.
You can buy an Under 21 player who somehow doesn't currently qualify for a UK work permit (even though as per my post just above it's actually now pretty easy for Brazilians and Argentinians to qualify) then send them on loan to the Eredivisie or Belgian League. Then as long as they get on the pitch once in the league then they'll qualify. The same goes if they're on loan in other major leagues such as Ligue 1, La Liga, Serie A or Portuguese League. If they're over 21 they'll need to play 40%+ of the club's minutes over the season.
So this means you can bring them over to England after only a maximum 1 year on loan, whereas before they generally needed about 3-4 years I think to gain EU residence.
In fact, based just on the regulations, you might only need to send an U-21 player on loan for a few months, so long as they get on the pitch - e.g. you can sign them in the summer, loan them, they come on once as a sub, then you recall them in January. This should give them enough points. Only reason why I'm not sure is that I've not seen a club actually try this yet, even though theoretically they should qualify.
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Ratcliffe has the perfect setup.
Buy them from South America then sent them to his Swiss club as the stepping stone or OGC Nice before either flogging them off or sending them to United. All within the same family.
Buy them from South America then sent them to his Swiss club as the stepping stone or OGC Nice before either flogging them off or sending them to United. All within the same family.
If they ever do this and get to the hiring stage for young administrators (like for fetching beer, driving scouts around, etc) I will throw my name in the hat. I am not young however what I lack in eagerness and quick response I make up for in drinking and debauchery. Also no habla espanol but I am eager to learn and would hire a voluptuous trainer to ensure success.
Surely Brighton have proved that if a player is good enough, and there are plenty of players in the South American Leagues who are, they can make the step up to the PL right away. And taking a few £5 million punts on hungry young Brazilian or Argentine players is surely a lot less speculative than trying to fix holes by throwing mega money at 30 year olds or Eredivisie players.
The explanation for Vini and Rodrygo is "Hazard's legs died."
One thing must be made clear here, United has an army of Scouts that has built an extensive scouting networks in Europe, South America & elsewhere.
But, what the club lacks is not scouting really, the club even has team of Data Scientists that analyses the vast amounts of data generated by the scouts or by scouting systems/applications, what the club lacks in is recruitment strategy, planning and execution.
The Scout's job is to go out there and scout the ability of a player, provide detailed reports on players scouted and so on, what a scout won't do is "Recruit" a player or find out if a player is recruitable, that is the job of the Recruitment Team, which is responsible for analyzing the potential recruitment of scouted targets and if they can fit into the style of play and many other areas that are looked into and analyzed, and then present a final list of potential targets to the DoF & Head Coach to select/choose from.
Another area the clubs lacks in is development strategy of young players, we have Amad & Pellistri , a promising and very talented young players signed at the age of 18 in 2020, now and after 2 years, they are yet to show any sign of decent progress and still need more time to be considered as an option for the first team.
But, what the club lacks is not scouting really, the club even has team of Data Scientists that analyses the vast amounts of data generated by the scouts or by scouting systems/applications, what the club lacks in is recruitment strategy, planning and execution.
The Scout's job is to go out there and scout the ability of a player, provide detailed reports on players scouted and so on, what a scout won't do is "Recruit" a player or find out if a player is recruitable, that is the job of the Recruitment Team, which is responsible for analyzing the potential recruitment of scouted targets and if they can fit into the style of play and many other areas that are looked into and analyzed, and then present a final list of potential targets to the DoF & Head Coach to select/choose from.
Another area the clubs lacks in is development strategy of young players, we have Amad & Pellistri , a promising and very talented young players signed at the age of 18 in 2020, now and after 2 years, they are yet to show any sign of decent progress and still need more time to be considered as an option for the first team.
I don't think people have adressed the main issue here. This is not Manchester United related, but is more general observation of big clubs.
You can't slot in unlimited number of youngsters in your setup. And to fill most of the squad, you have to sign players that you are absolutely sure are capable of playing at the level which you aspire to be.
Sign top 11 South American prospects and let them all play all the time, you may end up European champion in two years, but you may also end up relegated, which is also much more likely.
While club should definitely be more proactive in the market, it is also perfectly explicable why United didn't sign Caicedo.
People make it sound like spotting and developing talents is some sort of unmistakable science, but it isn't. There are thousands of kids right now around the world who are showing promise for big clubs and will end up not being professionals in five years. Big club can't fill themselves up with such players and hope for the best.
Perhaps there is a kid somewhere that is going to be better than Casemiro in two years. But when you are buying club, you also have to take in account that he may also end up being Scott Canham, for lack od better reference. While with Casemiro you pretty much know that even worst case scenario can't be extremely bad.
You can't slot in unlimited number of youngsters in your setup. And to fill most of the squad, you have to sign players that you are absolutely sure are capable of playing at the level which you aspire to be.
Sign top 11 South American prospects and let them all play all the time, you may end up European champion in two years, but you may also end up relegated, which is also much more likely.
While club should definitely be more proactive in the market, it is also perfectly explicable why United didn't sign Caicedo.
People make it sound like spotting and developing talents is some sort of unmistakable science, but it isn't. There are thousands of kids right now around the world who are showing promise for big clubs and will end up not being professionals in five years. Big club can't fill themselves up with such players and hope for the best.
Perhaps there is a kid somewhere that is going to be better than Casemiro in two years. But when you are buying club, you also have to take in account that he may also end up being Scott Canham, for lack od better reference. While with Casemiro you pretty much know that even worst case scenario can't be extremely bad.
Here is some issues that needs to be considered
A- SA isn't producing as much talent as it used to do + clubs aren't stupid as they used to be either. The days when one can go there and pick a Zanetti or a Roberto Carlos for a couple of million euros are gone
B- Work permit issues
C- SA talent tend to be raw. We lack the time and the structure to develop them + the scouts to actually unearth those talent. We've been told that Murtough had revolutionised the scouting/recruitment department only for us to go for ETH's targets and the rough diamond known as Casemiro.
D- SA talent tend to prefer the Serie A and La Liga to the EPL. However things are changing.
A- SA isn't producing as much talent as it used to do + clubs aren't stupid as they used to be either. The days when one can go there and pick a Zanetti or a Roberto Carlos for a couple of million euros are gone
B- Work permit issues
C- SA talent tend to be raw. We lack the time and the structure to develop them + the scouts to actually unearth those talent. We've been told that Murtough had revolutionised the scouting/recruitment department only for us to go for ETH's targets and the rough diamond known as Casemiro.
D- SA talent tend to prefer the Serie A and La Liga to the EPL. However things are changing.
I think we're already seeing the impact of Jose Mayorga at the club. Mayorga was United's head of South American scouting until he replaced the head scouts who left the club in March/April. And it's not a surprise to see us sign several South American players due to Mayorga's presence at the top of the scouting chain along with Simon Wells. I don't believe signings like Martinez and potentially Antony would get the go ahead without Mayorga's approval.
It'll be interesting to see how things develop in the coming seasons. But according to James Ducker, the Colombian, Jose Mayorga has taken up a senior position in the recruitment department, which could see us target South America for younger players.
It'll be interesting to see how things develop in the coming seasons. But according to James Ducker, the Colombian, Jose Mayorga has taken up a senior position in the recruitment department, which could see us target South America for younger players.
Taking cheap punts on unproven players is by definition more speculative than spending big on already proven players. It's literally speculating on future development.
So what happened to your youth system? You became the biggest club in the world not long ago with them. Beckham, Scholes, Giggs, Neville, etc, were raised there, no?
Apart from that, Real Madrid managed to steal you many players and signings that you were after which eventually changed the situation to our side.
Van Nistelrooy and Cristiano stolen, Benzema, Modric, Bale, Varane, Kroos, you were trying to sign them too but Madrid made a bigger offer or sounded more attractive to them.
Florentino admired Manchester United in the 2000s and copied everything he could with Valdano, Butragueño, Queiroz, etc to make it a modern global brand.
I mean United is not exactly a club that needs to learn much from us. In my opinion the main problem of Man Utd is the really low quality of their signings, we always are impressed by how much you spend for bad and old players. 80M for Casemiro is the last example. Or even thinking of Asensio.
Apart from that, Real Madrid managed to steal you many players and signings that you were after which eventually changed the situation to our side.
Van Nistelrooy and Cristiano stolen, Benzema, Modric, Bale, Varane, Kroos, you were trying to sign them too but Madrid made a bigger offer or sounded more attractive to them.
Florentino admired Manchester United in the 2000s and copied everything he could with Valdano, Butragueño, Queiroz, etc to make it a modern global brand.
I mean United is not exactly a club that needs to learn much from us. In my opinion the main problem of Man Utd is the really low quality of their signings, we always are impressed by how much you spend for bad and old players. 80M for Casemiro is the last example. Or even thinking of Asensio.
United already play Rashford and McT in many games. Several players have not made the mark in recent years including Tuanzebe, Lingard and Henderson. There are already several who are getting close to the first team including Garnacho and Hannibal.
Madrid signed something like three players from United in two decades. Hardly "stealing" our players is it?
By all accounts, Ruud and Beckham were also players that Ferguson wanted sold.
In this window, United signed a player on a free and a young kid at LB who has already started games. Martinez is hardly breaking the bank and has already shown some promise. The Casemiro deal is £60m + £10m add-ons.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/62608356
Feel free to continue to make up more bollocks though.
I think the reason we wouldn't scout Brazil extensively is because probably around 95% percent of the players wouldn't get a work permit to play in the UK. Not too knowledgeable about work permits but think you need to have international caps to meet criteria for a work permit