In September, Mundo Deportivo claimed that Liverpool had sent scouts to assess Argentinian striker Luciano Vietto, an 18-year old striker who currently plays for Racing Club in the Argentine Apertura. Now, with Liverpool's striker situation particularly acute, the Reds are ready to reignite interest in the youngster.
According to a new report, Liverpool are set to slug it out with Juventus, PSG and Real Madrid in a bid to sign Vietto, and his Agent, Jorge Cyterszpiler, confirmed over the weekend that big clubs are watching him. He told TMV:
"I confirm, Juve are watching him.
"He's eighteen and has caught the attention of big clubs, including Juventus. He was the second top scorer in the league."
£6.5m-rated Vietto scored a fabled 'perfect' hat-trick - left foot, right foot and header - against Club Atletico San Martinu in a league game in September:
Liverpool have a strong South American contingent at the club, which could be an attraction if/when negotiations begin.
Having said that, the presence of Luis Suarez, Sebastian Coates and Lucas Leiva didn't seem to help in the pursuit of Gaston Ramirez, so perhaps that's wishful thinking (!)
Vietto has made only eight senior appearances for Racing Club, and all four of his goals came in two games. What about the other six games?
It seems a tad premature to send scouts to watch a player who's scored in only one game out of five, but perhaps he has an outstanding youth record, like recent signing Samed Yesil...?
Jaimie Kanwar
According to a new report, Liverpool are set to slug it out with Juventus, PSG and Real Madrid in a bid to sign Vietto, and his Agent, Jorge Cyterszpiler, confirmed over the weekend that big clubs are watching him. He told TMV:
"I confirm, Juve are watching him.
"He's eighteen and has caught the attention of big clubs, including Juventus. He was the second top scorer in the league."
£6.5m-rated Vietto scored a fabled 'perfect' hat-trick - left foot, right foot and header - against Club Atletico San Martinu in a league game in September:
Liverpool have a strong South American contingent at the club, which could be an attraction if/when negotiations begin.
Having said that, the presence of Luis Suarez, Sebastian Coates and Lucas Leiva didn't seem to help in the pursuit of Gaston Ramirez, so perhaps that's wishful thinking (!)
Vietto has made only eight senior appearances for Racing Club, and all four of his goals came in two games. What about the other six games?
It seems a tad premature to send scouts to watch a player who's scored in only one game out of five, but perhaps he has an outstanding youth record, like recent signing Samed Yesil...?
Jaimie Kanwar
Jamie, for better or for worse, Liverpool were not interested in Ramirez and never put in a bid for him. Vietto might be a good prospect - I hope this time Liverpool don't let another gem slip through their hands (I recall Liverpool being linked to Falcao several years back, before Porto brought him to Europe for less than 4 million Euros ...)
ReplyDeleteAccording to Wikipedia he has made eight appearances scoring four goals. So he didn't score in six matches.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I, too, find it premature to speculate about his future while he hasn't proven anything yet. Sending scouts to actually watch him play and access whether or not there is real potential in the lad is not wrong. As far as I understand the rules a player has to be trained for three years at a club for him to be considered as home-grown. At 18 this could still be achieved by Vietto, right? For that kind of fee, though, there has to be more than mere potential.
Jackson Martínez, whom we were linked with until last summer, isn't doing too badly at Porto either, and he cost them less than what we've paid for Borini.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Anteater. When I put this together, I couldn't find anything to corroborate the wikipedia stats, but I guess I'll edit the article anyway. Chances are it's correct.
ReplyDeleteWhat's the work permit situation?
ReplyDeleteJust a general question, would we have got a work permit for Martinez? Doesn't seem to be a regular for Columbia nor is he young enough to be classified as a 'special talent', would make it at least be very hard to get a work permit me thinks, unless he has a EU passport.
ReplyDeleteReally good question and I really don't know. Guess if ManU were interested in him, he'd get a work permit.
ReplyDeleteIf I had any say at the club, we would go for James Rodríguez of Porto. He is a real star in the making.
ReplyDeleteHehe.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure there are plenty of talented South American players in that part of the world that could be good enough for the PL but because of the work permit rules, it is understandable why PL clubs are more slower off the mark to get players directly from there, instead waiting til they get a EU passport,etc. Because of this restrictions on PL clubs, as well as the limited no. of non-EU players that Spanish & Italian clubs can have in their first team squad, Portuguese clubs can exploit this gap in the market and know they have a decent chance of selling on South Americans for big money to these leagues. So I think one can't be too damning of PL clubs (not saying you personally are, just a general comment) for not snapping up the likes of Martinez, Falcao, Gaitan, Rodgriguez, Ramirez, David Luiz, etc, directly from South America, instead forking out huge fees to these Portuguese clubs.
Big money needed for him I reckon!
ReplyDeleteUnless he has a EU passport, the club would have to appeal as his initial application would most likely be denied and hope the appeal panel give him a permit based on him being a 'exceptional talent'. Mancs and Arsenal did that I assume with Henriquez, Miyaichi and Campbell (though the latter failed). I think Arsenal got quite a few non-EU youngsters that they have loaned out such as Galindo, Wellington, etc.
ReplyDeleteWell, there are quite a few young non-EU players at several clubs in the Prem so there is a way to get them without funding Portuguese football. Probably depends on whether or not the club can convince the responsible authorities that a youngster actually is a special talent.
ReplyDeleteI don't have it, sorry, but I wouldn't mind if we threw our transfer kitty at him.
ReplyDeleteJaimie... in your latest article "1.7" you got the league average and Liverpool average the wrong way round... just alerting you to it mate...
ReplyDeleteNot said it is impossible but its not easy and especially with older players who don't play often for their countries such as Jackson Martinez.
ReplyDeleteThe 'special talent' thing mainly only for young players (most of the time) and its not easy it seems. Arsenal succeeded with Ryo but not with Joel Campbell, despite the latter being a talent that is already a full international.
Another option is to farm them out on loan like Arsenal have done with Wellington, Galindo, etc. But odd trips back to the parent club aside, the danger with that is a lot of their development is at the hands of the loanee clubs who don't necessarily have the long term outlook as to their development, which is not a ideal situation. Maybe if they kept on using the same loan club and had some sort of partnership, it might be more ideal but looking at Arsenal's examples, Campbell went on loan in France and now in Spain, whilst Wellington is now on his third loan club since joining Arsenal. I'm sure there a few examples out there that this route can work at times. Bit of a wishy-washy way of getting and developing non-EU players, in my view.
Of course, the other is a EU passport route as done with Da Silva twins as well as Leto for us I think until that passport got pulled (which meant he had to go out loan and now plynig his trade in a mediocre league)
Another thing to consider is the third party ownership factor. With the ever growing popularity of third party ownerships in South America, wouldn't surprise me if more and more of the hot talents get tapped up by them (which is off-putting for PL clubs, not necessarily fatally as they can try to buy them out but good luck with getting them on the cheap). Such as Lucas, soon to be at PSG, his rights weren't totally owned by the Brazilian club, which I bet drove up the overall asking price for the Mancs. Falcao was/is third-party owned. With the strict rules on third party ownerships in PL as well as how it drives the price up for these players, not ideal to say the least. Hulk is still partially owned by a third party despite moving to Zenit, which I bet was a pain in the backside for Chelsea & Spurs to try and attempt to deal with, which probably put an end to their interest. I read somewhere that Moutinho is also partially owned by a company, my bet is the ownership issue was a big obstacle in Spurs attempt to try and get him. Some of these are older players of course but simply highlighting the increasing levels of 3rd party ownership which can come into play in players as young as Lucas.
OriginalChan, this whole third party ownership thing has to be entirely ruled out by FIFA. Not that it will happen as FIFA are nothing more than a bunch of corrupt ar$eholes, but it is slavery. How third party owned players are even allowed to play in the EU is beyond me, when on the other hand there are laws giving any employee the freedom to work wherever they wish to.
ReplyDelete