The worst place to buy players

[rurikbird]

No, it's not the Premier League, it's Portugal. I've been bothered by this for a while – how can one market be so consistently overpriced, but still enjoy no shortage of buyers? With Premier League you can understand the desire of British clubs to pay a premium for domestic players; Portugal offers no such advantage and the style of play taught there – slow, deliberate passing with lots of play-acting, niggly fouls by defenders, and emphasis on crosses and long-range shots, rather than combination play – is not really conductive to settling in the rich Northern European leagues (even Spain is very different, with their culture of midfield pressing battles and rapid pass-and-move).

It's clear that Porto and Benfica created a business model that is based on buying and developing players with the view of timing their sale at precisely the peak of their value – which means the buyers always less value than they paid for. I also think the type of players those clubs choose for grooming are the ones most likely to fetch a big profit, rather than possibly less marketable ones that are actually effective at winning games – that's where Germany and Portugal are polar opposites.

To illustrate this point, here are top 3 transfers by price out of Portugal in the last couple of seasons:

2015-16
1. Jackson Martinez, Porto to Atletico Madrid for €37M – total flop, scored only 2 goals in the league and sold to China next season (somehow, still at a profit).
2. Danilo Silva, Porto to Real Madrid for €31M – leave it to Real Madrid to pay over 30M for a full-back who cannot defend.
3. Rodrigo Moreno, Benfica to Valencia for €30M – 2 goals and 3 assists in the league is hardly great for a 30M winger/striker. I remember he was linked to us a couple of seasons ago, I guess it's bullet dodged.

2014-15
1. Ellaquim Mangala, Porto to Man City for €54M – the most expensive defender in British transfer history. Not even close to the best.
2-3. Enzo Perez, Benfica to Valencia for €25M – zero goals and zero assists this season
2-3. Lazar Markovic, Benfica to Liverpool for €25M

Let's also not forget the expensive turds from seasons past, from David Luiz (whooping €25M in 2010), to Fabio Coentrao (wonderful attacker, but you'd like some defensive ability from your LB), Bruno Alves (yet another from the seemingly endless pipeline of overhyped defenders from Porto, sold to Zenit for €22M, now plodding in Turkey), the infamous Quaresma, United's pair Nani and Anderson and of course, Bebè. A couple of successes like Matic or Falcao (before he went shit) don't change the overall picture – Portugal is the most overpriced, overhyped football supermarket in the world. OK, end of rant.

 

[LeTallecWiz]

I wonder if the cheaper players are the 'diamonds' -

 

[Arn]

The main reason is that it is much more difficult to get a work permit in the UK. That means that many of the top class talents sign for a club from Portugal to get playing time and play in the CL.

It is much more difficult to get that chance in a club from Spain because you need to be a world class talent to even get close to the first team.

 

[cloggypop]

The answer to your question is Jorge Mendes.

https://www.theguardian.com/footbal...ge-mendes-agent-third-party-ownership-players

 

[Kay Age El]

They do seem well over-priced in general and maybe there's is a 'Ronaldo-effect' in the market still, that you can perhaps discover something similar?

Either way their Youth teams (Portugal's) are often among the best around which I believe tend to have a positive impact on pricing in a market, but maybe some of their advantages in their younger years pan out over time why a lot of them seem to struggle in the later years?

Interesting observation mind.

*From our perspective the Italian market seems like one we should stay well clear off.

PS Hasn't Bayern just absolutely blown the bank away on some young midfielder from Portugal as well?

 

[Roopy]

For me the question isn't over the quality of the players in Portugal, the questions should be about the clubs forking out insane transfer fees for players who clearly do not warrant such price tags.

Portuguese clubs are very smart ... bring in the best talents from South America who perform well and 12 months later they know the big clowns of Europe will come in and pay astronomical fees.

What's helped is the emergence of cashed up clubs like City & PSG - the market has become so inflated, big clubs will now pay over the top fees as competition for the best talent is much bigger than it was 10 yrs ago.