CTID101 said:
As well as Fernando we need to be picking up whoever is the head of scouting in South America.
Staggering amount of players are picked up ahead of seemingly everyone with no competition, I understand that there are work permit issues that don't affect Portuguese clubs like most others but still!
The problem is more that they can afford to buy a lot of them, play them all without any real fear of dropping below 2nd/3rd place and let them develop. Some of them develop into valuable players, others don't. We can't afford to do that, we can't have players who aren't good enough playing for us.
They also have a lot of traction with South American dealmakers, as Portugal is the only country in the EU that allows 3rd party ownership, so agents can move their talents to Europe, yet retain a large amount of their financial rights