Got this piece from the old MTH via Celtic underground, made me think about where we are shopping!
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An amazing statistic I was unaware of, is that the Inter-Milan team that won the Champion's League last season had seven South American players taking part in the final.
Apparently in Argentina, the joke doing the rounds is that Inter are the first South American team to win the Champion's League!
An excellent article today from Mark Cooper of celticunderground.net points out the many bargains available in South American football, and how Celtic, our main concern, are missing out due to a lack of a proper scouting system in the American southern hemisphere.
celticunderground.net/index.p...2011&Itemid=80A couple of examples.
"Luis Suarez-23 years old, captain of Ajax, for whom he scored 49 goals last season. Out of our price range now, yet Groningen bought him for approximately £600,000 four years ago.
"A year later, they sold him to Ajax for ten times that figure.
"A couple of other examples; Diego Godin, now of Atletico Madrid, is possibly currently the best centre back in the world.
"Like Suarez, he also left Nacional of Montevideo. Villarreal bought him three years ago for approximately £650,000.
"Jorge Fucile of Porto played five times for Uruguay at the World Cup. He seemed equally comfortable playing as both a right and left back.
"He cost Porto just £300,000. Our competitors in Europe have been getting these players at these prices. They are the markets in which they operate and the level players that they can acquire from a very modest outlay. Equally, we should be looking to South America and acquiring the best talents available to us."
The article also points out that while street smart teams like Porto, Gronigen, Villareal and dare I mention it....Braga!...are buying top notch South American players for peanuts, we are paying millions for average players from the most expensive market in the world...England!
Marc-Antoine Fortune anyone?
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And before anyone mentions the visa problems, this from the same poster on the subject:
Liverpool bought young Emiliano Insua before he had even played a game for the Boca Juniors first team.
"Likewise Manchester United picked up the da Silva twins (Rafael and Fabio) prior to them making an appearance for Fluminense.
"These purchases have demonstrated how lax the Home Office has become in allowing non-EU footballers to attain work permits, something that Celtic will be able to exploit."
That would seem a fair statement given that Celtic have recently signed Mexican Juarez and Columbian Emilio Izaguirre without any problem.
The author claims that those signings were scouted at the World Cup and criticises the club for not having a proper scouting programme in place in South America.