He had a release clause and there is no way that Benfica were going to let him go cheap at any point.
Joao Felix
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He had a release clause and there is no way that Benfica were going to let him go cheap at any point.
Atletico are ridiculous in the transfer market. Not everything works out, but they are great in identifying talents.
They have lost quite a few players in the summer, but have done a good job in rebuilding.
They have lost quite a few players in the summer, but have done a good job in rebuilding.
Whatever you are talking about has nothing to do with Felix.
Yeah but Felix did reach an insane fee.
I think organisations like Ajax and Benfica (that are historical giants but lack top-end financial muscle) have wisened up to the threat of predaceous contemporary elites in recent years. Identifying the best talents before they have a breakout season makes sense in a vacuum, but because the players are contractually obligated their parent clubs have to be willing to sell as well. Every major team across Europe knew of players like De Ligt or Félix because they have vast scouting networks, but there's a reason why neither of them moved till now — Ajax and Benfica held onto them for as long as realistically possible and then sold them for a substantial fee — a lot like Mbappé at Monaco, who was followed by clubs like Madrid for several years but did not move before completing a couple good years at first team level, and the same is happening with Havertz...who will surely move for a major fee in the future because he is under contract at Leverkusen till 2022. Plus, it's better for the young players to develop in a relatively low pressure environment to begin with — plenty of talents are sidelined over the short term (Dalot is a good example because he was the most highly rated Portuguese fullback in years at U-17 and U-19 level and many felt he should have stayed at Porto after the departure of Pereira) or fail immediately after a big move...and that sets their development back by years (and sometimes they don't recover at all because of irreparable psychological damage).
£36m for Martial was insane at that time.
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£36m not that much but €80m including bonuses looked batshit crazy at the time.
He still has to confirm but Felix feels like one of the very best ways Atletico could have reinvested the Griezmann money.
Benfica have made almost 864 mil in sales over the last 10 years and made a transfer profit of 589 mil in that period. That is a crazy amount of money I wonder what they do with all that money.
http://www.sportbible.com/football/...-sales-in-the-last-10-years-20190713.amp.html
http://www.sportbible.com/football/...-sales-in-the-last-10-years-20190713.amp.html
We spend quite badly on neverending infrastructure and an endless amount of shitty players that most never even make it to the first team.
My son was lucky enough to play a friendly at the Benfica academy, which was an incredibly impressive piece of real estate. Looks like a decent chunk of that money is ploughed back into the facilities that produces these young talents.
Tbf and this coming from a rival this has its ups and downs.
The ups are that money has been keeping a core of players who are good enough for the domestic league but not good enough for the Champions League, and the investments done on Seixal by Vieira on the last decade turned the Academy into one of the best in Europe.
The downside of this is that this talented players are all part of the Mendes network, and that means not staying long in Portugal.
It’s all part of the business, I was watching a Interview from Jesualdo Ferreira on the other day regarding his 4 years at Porto, they always had to sell their best players at the time but the club was ambitious enough at the time to compete in Europe at the time bringing always top players to replace others, it’s difficult to do this presently in 2019 as football is structured, still like more what Ajax is doing, keeping their best players 2 or 3 years.
Anyway this decade overall youth football level here improved, if we can sort out the development of keepers and centerbacks I am not worried at all with our future. Unless we lose at Serbia though.
No doubt for me after Ronaldo Felix is the most talented 19/20 year old player we have, don’t care about the money tbh.
In all honesty i think that your stadium is really really good.
Exactly the player that Real should have signed.
If Madrid does another 18-19 this season, it's Floren's head, and he probably knows it.
If Madrid does another 18-19 this season, it's Floren's head, and he probably knows it.
Our stadium is good and our training and youth development center is also top notch but beyond that there's a bunch of "vanity projects" that don't make much sense in my opinion and will cost the club tens of millions of euros. Such as Benfica College, Benfica Hotel and a High Performance center for athletics. It's not by chance that some of our supporters make fun of our President and nickname him Bob The Builder. There can be too much of a good thing and we are way beyond that point.
I'm sure you can make money out of a Benfica hotel.
Tbf and this coming from a rival this has its ups and downs.
The ups are that money has been keeping a core of players who are good enough for the domestic league but not good enough for the Champions League, and the investments done on Seixal by Vieira on the last decade turned the Academy into one of the best in Europe.
The downside of this is that this talented players are all part of the Mendes network, and that means not staying long in Portugal.
It’s all part of the business, I was watching a Interview from Jesualdo Ferreira on the other day regarding his 4 years at Porto, they always had to sell their best players at the time but the club was ambitious enough at the time to compete in Europe at the time bringing always top players to replace others, it’s difficult to do this presently in 2019 as football is structured, still like more what Ajax is doing, keeping their best players 2 or 3 years.
Anyway this decade overall youth football level here improved, if we can sort out the development of keepers and centerbacks I am not worried at all with our future. Unless we lose at Serbia though.
No doubt for me after Ronaldo Felix is the most talented 19/20 year old player we have, don’t care about the money tbh.
That's exacly what we should be doing, no amount of money shoud be enough for us to sell players that just made the first team less than a year ago. Selling players like Renato Sanches and Felix so soon is bad for the club and can hurt the players as they might not be ready for the jump. Renato was a clear cut example of that IMO. We have to take the risk of not doing so much money with those kind of players in the future but let them grow and maybe then in a very good year we can replicate what Ajax has done last season. The way we are managed a semi final of the champions league is just a pipe dream.
Another class goal+assist. I know it's pre season but I wonder if Benfica could have held him for longer. You wonder why these clubs are contented with so little, having 6 months of Felix now and maybe another year when he is 36 years old later on.. Try to hold him for 4, 5 years, build a marketing structure, collect fans world wide. Santos did something similar with Neymar where they payed almost all his salary in image rights and they managed to hold him for 2 more years.
I think they genuinely wanted to hold on to him for longer. That's why they insisted on the release clause.
While I can agree that the overall squad management of our club is too much inclined to sell every year and use the money to buy youth potential (this year being different with the bought of RdT and Carlos Vinicius) and we should be looking to make a long term solid squad project, there's no way any club would refuse an offer like that.
Nike paid part of his wages and were a big reason for him staying there as long as he did
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I agree. In this particular case the offer was unrefusable but I was criticizing the overall trend.
Off course. One right doesn't delete all the wrongs made in the past. And by the look on our transfer activity it seems we didn't learn much. The only difference is now that the impact of "out of the blue" transfers will be diluted because Félix transfer sum is huge.
I actually liked the RdT and Vinicius transfers: I think they are capable players and have more than enough quality to deliver quality at our league.
We have to address our lack of a quality RB that sooner or later might take it's toll. And to be clear, I tottally trust Ferro and Dias, but I would like to have one more quality option for the center of the defense, because I don't really trust Conti.
I am concerned with the excess of options upfront tbh because we have to reduce them before the season starts (having excess players only cause malcontent within the squad).
How much Porto will get with this transfer?
How good is this kid going to become?
It was/is clear as day that he's a future/imminent Ballon d'Or contender. Not sure how Atletico got a free run.
They didn’t get a free run. He wanted to go there, as it is a good stepping stone.
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The new Mbappe
1,2M euros
Yes, a CB would be nice, I don't trust Jardel anymore and Conti is way too inconsistent. Almeida is solid but some competition for the spot wouldn't hurt. A great GK would be nice, but we failed Cillesen, Navas and Perrin so maybe that window has closed. I might being greedy but I also would like a second striker, that german kid Waldschmidt looks great but he's probably beyond our means.
The german kid is ace! We would have to loan out a couple of players, though.
GK is always going to be problematic: we can't expect to find Éderson's and Oblak's. We were just extremely lucky to find two amazing keepers in a row. Other clubs have extremely difficults to find good ones also.
Sporting is getting a hard time finding a replacement for Patrício, and long time ago Porto got dozens of keepers to replace Vitor Baía, some of them were even NT keepers, only to buyback Baía from Barça (he was crooked, though).
We can find ourselves a bit lucky that our current GK is actually very strong between the posts, but a bit weak in dominating the area.
2 goals in 45 minutes.He chose the wrong club at Madrid
Serious generational talent. Can’t believe people were doubting him.
Not his fault you weren't interested
120m maybe not that crazy after all in todays market. AM most likely will earn money once he moves on
Throw 200m down for him in January Woody
Multiple users (Porto and Sporting fans) over here stating that he was a product of Benfica's propaganda... How couldn't you doubt?
Those of us who saw his obvious talent should pat ourselves on the back
Probably we were,but lightly and not assuming Mendes conditions(I think Florentino-Mendes are not in their best moment).
He could be the soap opera for next summers but with that clause is impossible
I told you guys. Only haters could deny this kid's talent. Rui Costa, Bernardo and Felix are the best players to ever come out of Benfica's youth development system. And Felix at his age is leaps and bounds above the other two. Nothing is guaranteed. Atletico took a huge risk with the price tag and he may still not deliver on his full potential but as I always stated Felix is a generacional talent, he has the ability to be one of the best players in the world in the next decade.