That was a good one!! Yeah playing for Sporting Lisbon and that... was really a surprise buy!Ben Arfa to Newcastle
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That was a good one!! Yeah playing for Sporting Lisbon and that... was really a surprise buy!
Is that sarcasm?
All of your posts are weird.
You are weird.
Nonsense, Ronaldo was well known long before we signed him
Compared to Bebe, yes, but he was far from a household name.
It's as if some people want Bebe to fail just to be proven right.
TBH we need a left winger and I've always like Ben Arfa. Fast and tricky. If he's cheap I wouldn't mind going for him as he is exactly the type of player SAF likes working with - problematic kids who he gets to grow up.
ONly problem is he'd be on the bench often and may not grow up there!
ONly problem is he'd be on the bench often and may not grow up there!
Yeah really well known having played about 20 times for Sporting Lisbon.
I for one constantly keep up with which youth team players have played half a dozen games for clubs in average European Leagues.
I'm sure most other football fans throughout the world are the same.
I do really like the look of him, it depends on how fergie thinks about some of the youngsters we already have
You don't know me
and yeah it was.
Urm, well Ronaldo was a surprise buy. Before that friendly in the summer we signed him barely any football fans knew who he was.
A lot of people knew him before he signed for United.If you didn't, it's not the norm
feck me.
I'm prepared to bet more people on here didn't know who he was before he was linked to United than did.
All pretending to be experts on portuguese football all of a sudden?
Anyway - point remains that Fergie saw fit to spend £12 million on a young lad most fans probably hadn't heard off and it turned out to be a masterstroke.
I was impressed with Bebe the other night. Looked big, fast, good balance and with a bit of confidence. Not unlike (although perhpas not as obvious) a certain young lad he signed a few years ago.
But clubs knew who he was or was he oblivious to everyone?? We brought him after that game but you seem to forget we already had a first option clues on him that lasted until the following season...
So..... How unknown was he??!!
Well he was linked with us before we played them!! Knowing how redcafe works there was probably a thread about him from the orginal link.
Looks like your wrong again. Like he said if you didn't know about him it was just your lack of knowlegde when it comes to young prospect.
So your logic is that because Ferguson knew who he was - Ferguson being the manager of the club with arguably the greatest scouting network in world football - he does not count as unknown?
The number of football fans outside of Portugal who knew about Ronaldo before the summer we signed him can probably be counted on one hand. You are not one of them. Heck, the number of clubs in England aware of him can probably be counted on one hand.
Like i said before unknown to who?! Your a football 'fan' your job is not to know about future prospects hell if you like to do it in your leasure time it is up to you!! What i'm telling you is in the football world Ronaldo was not 'unknown'.
Seing as this is a Ben Arfa thread i'll relate it to him. A lot of people on here would probably have known about Ben Arfa when he was 16 along with Nasri and Menez when they where playing in youth tournments. If United happened to buy him at the age of 18 he would have been unknown. Take that into fact that he wasn't a french football regular untill around 20. Obertan other example... Bebe on the other hand, no one had a friggin clue where he came from because he never generated a youth level buzz.
There is no where else i can go with this convo.. Just because you never heard of him doesn't mean he was unknown if your football knowledge of young players is good then just give me an example of what a known young player was at that time?
Deary fecking me you're insane.
Ignored.
Ignored.
Okay, the one and only time I will click the link and open your post:
OF feckING COURSE when people talk about a player being unknown they don't mean unknown to SAF.
To recap this conversation:
RedRover: Ronaldo was unknown when SAF signed him
Mainoldo: How can he have been unknown if SAF knew who he was?
Rowem: Because SAF is the manager of the team with the greatest scouting network in the world
Very few people outside of Portugal knew about Ronaldo aged 17, even within football. It was some 8 years ago and was before the days when every 13 year old Vietnamese boy could find out online who performed well at this years international youth tournament. That is fact.
OF feckING COURSE when people talk about a player being unknown they don't mean unknown to SAF.
To recap this conversation:
RedRover: Ronaldo was unknown when SAF signed him
Mainoldo: How can he have been unknown if SAF knew who he was?
Rowem: Because SAF is the manager of the team with the greatest scouting network in the world
Very few people outside of Portugal knew about Ronaldo aged 17, even within football. It was some 8 years ago and was before the days when every 13 year old Vietnamese boy could find out online who performed well at this years international youth tournament. That is fact.
Finally, someone with some sense. I suspected I was going mad.
Maybe Mainoldo should get a job scounting, he's certainly got the skills it seems.
I also suspect he may be portuguese and perhaps had heard of Ronaldo, and maybe forgets that some of us are from elsewhere. Just a thought.
If you think that the average football fan knows about players playing in touth tournaments - other than those covered in the mainstram media, then you are mad.
The vast majority of football fans don't spend their lives trawling the internet, playing Football Manager or even spend time on message boards. Not that there is anything wrong with that. They go to watch their team or watch them on the telly and at most visit BBC sport or look in the paper.
kouroux could run off a whole list of promising French players and pretty much none of us would have heard of the majority of them!
Ronaldo is an exception - after all, Arsenal were tracking him too.
However, we can't really just go on by newspapers and ITKs when it comes to gauging how much a club knows about a scouted player.
Ronaldo is an exception - after all, Arsenal were tracking him too.
However, we can't really just go on by newspapers and ITKs when it comes to gauging how much a club knows about a scouted player.
Ronaldo wasn't a complete unknown when we signed him. Doubt many United fans had seen him play or anything, but we'd been linked with both him and Quaresma during the previous season. I mean, I already knew he was when we signed him and that's just from reading the sport pages in the papers.
Fair enough. I would imagine there was a fair bit about him in the few weeks before he signed. The fairly sensible and not particularly controversial (or so I thought) point I was trying to make was that when Fergie paid £12 million for a teenager from Portugal was that it would have raised a few eyebrows given that most people would have said "Ronaldo who"?
Exactly.
Like I said, people knew about him.If you didn't it's your problem.Just don't criticize people when you have no idea what they know/knew about.
Knowing about Ronaldo before he signed for United doesn't one is an expert of Portuguese football
I'm with you there. I "knew" about Ronaldo's potential through CM. Everyone raved about Quaresma at the time and as soon as you went searching for him you bumped into Ronaldo. In fact, I'm sure if I still played FM I would have "known everything about Ben Arfa" for a few years now.
Fact is, I've been acquainted with his name for some time (through the caf and usual transfer muppetry), as I had with Ronaldo, but never ever have seen him play.
I don't really watch much football other than United and some international games. I don't have time for much else, and I suspect the average fan doesn't either.
The average fan is a fanatic. Especially in the developing world. You'd be surprised about some of the football they watch and know about.
I'm from the developing world so get off your high horse.
It's simple, there are 24 hours in a day. Eight hours sleep, eight hours work, leaves another eight.
From those eight you lose 2 having meals (if not more in the developing world), 1 commuting, 1 servicing the missus, 1.5 scrubbing up/reading papers/checking emails/general time-wasting.
That leaves 2:30 hours a day to "do something". If United is playing, that's where it goes, same if my country is playing, very likely if a very juicy game is on.
Otherwise, the average fan has better things to do with their time than watching two shit teams in a no-mark league just to track some random young talent.
What high horse? What are you own about? I live in the developing world. Furthermore I'm not the one trying to make it seem like most global football fans dont have a knowledge of the game outside the teams they support. The developed world doesn't match the developing world in terms of how folks follow the game. So to claim most average fans don't have in depth knowledge of the game outside that of the team they support is a poor sweeping statement to make.
That's what you think happens. Not what actually takes place. For example in the nation I live, people have got to watch global youth tournaments since at least 1990 consistently. I assure you, you would be shocked about the depth of knowledge of the game that people have about the game in general down here. I'm sick and tired of people pretending that knowing about the game far and wide is an anomaly amongst football fans. It really isn't.
My point was that you shouldn't resort to: "you don't know how things are in the developing world". I do.
No one has made that statement. Most football fans will indeed have a good idea of what happens beyond their own teams. The discussion here revolved around having in depth knowledge of all youth talent coming through. That's a full time job for a scout, the average football fan relies on hearsay, sport pages and youtube clips for the most part, not first hand knowledge.
You would have known about Messi since he was at Barca, you would know about a few others here and there because you happen to bump into them (e.g. I happened to be in Brazil when Kaka, Diego and Robinho were coming through and did post a lot about them then).
But some fellows on this thread were arguing most football fans had an extensive knowledge of the likes of Ronaldo before he signed for us. I doubt most would have seen much of him other than in that game against us, unless they were Portuguese, of course.
I agree there is a difference in terms of how much attention youth football gets across countries. But the discussion here revolved around MOST fans somehow finding the time to have extensive knowledge about every player that ever shone or got hyped at any one tournament. That simply isn't feasible.
Maybe one or two catch your eye and for some reason you have the time and willingness to make an effort and track down streams for their respective clubs and watch full games hoping they will start/be subbed on. That already would be quite extreme, but some here make it sound like watching football is their full time job and that they have a full brief running the rule on any young talent anywhere.
That's what RedRover and I are not buying, we are not saying you couldn't know, we are scoffing at the notion that MOST would actually know much first hand.
I never did. It's you who brought it up. My point had feck all to do with your knowledge or lack of knowledge of the devopoing world.
Oh really?
.......................
Bullshit. Loads of fans actually watch global youth tournaments on the regular. You don't need to be a football scout to do such. Scouts in fact do far more than merely watch youth tournaments. That's the problem with folks on here. Many of us don't actually grasp the depth of what scouts do.
Which is what I find hilarious. Because I know many places in that show Portuguese football on the regular that don't even speak the language. Football of all types gets around more than many on here think or realise.
Of course. That is why that was never what was being discussed at all! What was being discussed was if Ronaldo was known by good number of fans pre signing for United. The answer I believe is is yes. For outside of places like Europe, people get to watch a much more broader range of football action. Some like in Africa even have dedicated football stations and channels that air more live football than the countries from which that football originates do.
Rather, from what I see you are just plain scoffing at the idea of people having more knowledge of football than you and him do. But hey. Maybe I'm just misinterpreting you.
This debate still going on?!! If you have a 'real' keen interest in football you would know about players like Ronaldo and Ben Arfa before they made there way onto these shaws!! Football is on all the time not just now but 8 years ago aswell, it's amazing what you see from just watching teams other than United hell just Euro-goals thats what i use to do, half the time the presenter tells you what players have a big buzz, like when Ronaldo scored his first goal for Sporting which i just happened to see.
The orginal arguement was about Bebe and the matter of fact was no Euro goals- youtube- FM- etc would have made you know about this guy because he was truely 'unknown'. Players like Ronaldo, Ben Arfa friggin even Djbrill Cisse(when first bursting onto the seen) have always been available to watch, not making them an unknown quantity.
The orginal arguement was about Bebe and the matter of fact was no Euro goals- youtube- FM- etc would have made you know about this guy because he was truely 'unknown'. Players like Ronaldo, Ben Arfa friggin even Djbrill Cisse(when first bursting onto the seen) have always been available to watch, not making them an unknown quantity.
Read what I said again. I acknowledge people do watch these tournaments and may have some basic knowledge of a player on that basis, but not much else. Otherwise they would be doing what full-time scouts do, which I don't think the average fan has the time for.
Many places do, so what? It doesn't mean that most football fans across the world watch the Portuguese league, or do they?
There was no prior ******** over him whatsoever on the caf, it all started when we played them. In fact, for some time after many argued we had got the wrong one as it was Quaresma that everyone creamed about.
I certainly don't and I'm sure a lot of people watch more football than I do, but it's just not feasible that all youth talent going is being tracked by any one individual fan, which is how it keeps being portrayed.
So you are confirming that the average fan has a youtube/FM/highlights show knowledge of most players, which has been my point all along.
It depends what you call basic knowledge. For me basic knowledge is what you got from merely catching a match.
At least in Africa I'm sure they do. I can't speak for the rest of the world.
The cafe ''consensus knowledge'' is a dreadful way to judge global fan player knowledge. For on here if you say you know a player you are scoffed at. Even after what you said about them was proven correct.
Of course all youth tournaments can't be tracked by fans. But the major ones are nowdays shown on live tv to a world wide audience, more regularly then some folks realise. Be it as live or recorded footage.
It might be your point but my point was that people knew who Ronaldo was before the friendly and that he wasn't 'unknown'.
I would say caf "consensus knowledge" is probably better than that of an "average fan", purely on the grounds that people care enough about the game to log onto a site looking for news and to ramble about football. It's also quite democratic in its accessibility across the globe.
Maybe these days the standards have been diluted, but I have a lot of time for the posters we had back in 2003.
This goes back to the basic knowledge. Yes, fans can watch youth tournaments, and that gives them the chance to access basic knowledge by watching a player over a few games in one tournament.
What I mean by tracking a player is then going on to watch them play week in week out, which is what would give you any form of in depth knowledge about a young prospect and, particularly, whether he is worth 12m as was the case with Ronaldo.
I don't think many fans go on to do this, unless they get really obsessed, in which case they may do it with 1-2 players but no more.
Not to Bebe's level, we all agree on that. But not "widely known by all footie fans", and not reknowned as a player worthy of a 12m price tag by any stretch of the imagination.
It was nowhere near as baffling as Bebe, but the fee did take a lot of digesting at the time.
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