Quote:
Originally Posted by Brasileiro
Rick, not every Brazilian club ask for a "insane" amount of money. Cruzeiro sold Ramires for 8M(euros), Inter bought Coutinho for 3M euros in 3x(1 million for year!!!) Corinthians was asking for 6M for Jucilei, Real paid 5M for Marcelo... All purchases, win-win business for European Clubs.
But the Neymar incident showed what I've been saying here for years... Some Brazilian clubs can't pay the same wages of Europe, but they aren't broke as before. They're organized and want to win titles, not be feeders of European clubs. São Paulo chose to keep Hernanes and sold for less than they could have some years ago(15m to Barça), but on the other hand, the team won 3 national titles with him as a leader. The buyout was 25millions and no one pay, great!!! Their fans were happy with the titles, the club is in a good(financial) situation and got 13 for him after that.
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Sorry if it sounded as though I was painting all the Brazilian clubs with one brush. But what I was thinking was that for many of these guys -- Neymar being a perfect example -- the transfer fees for players who are 18 or 19 years old and have relatively little experience are more than what established world class stars were moving for just a few short years ago. It wasn't so long ago that a fee of 20 million euros was very rare indeed. Now it's almost a starting point! But I don't blame the clubs for asking for these insane fees. It's the fault of the European clubs for throwing money around so carelessly and driving up the market so drastically. As long as this is the system we have, clubs such as Santos are perfectly within their rights to hold out for the best fee possible.
By the way, I interact with a lot of Europeans on a general football forum and I understand the arrogance of which you speak. They have no idea, really, how good the level of play in the leagues of Brazil and Argentina are, even though the Europeans buy up the best of the best. But the truth is there are many players who are barely heard of outside of South America who could easily play for most national teams. The depth of talent is incredible. I've been keeping a bit of an eye on three young Brazilians who are on loan from Sao Paolo to the Los Angeles Galaxy. All have very famous names -- Juninho, Leonardo and Alex (but not
those guys) -- but had yet to make their marks in Brazil. But watching them I see that they have potential. Maybe not the type of potential that would ever interest a club like Milan, but I think they could all have good careers in MLS or in the vast majority of the European leagues. Juninho has particularly impressed me. I saw him score a goal from 30 yards out that was just a rocket. Yet players like these are pretty much a dime a dozen in Brazil and Argentina, which is why the leagues in those countries remain strong despite the European raids for the top players.