A First Look At Summer Transfer Targets

By: Greg | May 6th, 2008

tget Every summer, Manchester United (especially recently) and other prominent clubs look to strengthen their teams by purchasing a number of young Portuguese league stars. As I watch the matches during the season, I wonder how hardcore fans of Portuguese teams can endear themselves to any given player. How can you, with the knowledge that if a player excels on the pitch that they’re more likely than not going to be headed out in the coming transfer season? I suppose you can look at the player from a parental type of viewpoint, to say that he’s shining on the pitch on your watch and then when you release him for twenty five million Euros, you then get to watch him grow further at a larger, more prestigious club.

Meanwhile, your league will continue to lose European spots as a result of poor performance abroad and achieving the pinnacle of European glory will be an infrequent realization at best. So let’s have a quick look at a handful of targets whose highest probability of tasting European glory will not come from staying with their present club. I’ll start off with four guys who are almost definitely gone at the end of the season and then subsequent posts will feature more fringe or less talked about targets…

Ricardo Quaresma, Winger, Porto – He already had a stint (albeit an unsuccessful one) at Barcelona a few years ago. However, his Spanish odyssey was plagued with inconsistent play and constant clashing of heads with manager Frank Rijkaard. Quaresma has since become a more complete player, willing to cover his position going back as well as forward. His international and club play has moved him back to the top of a number of teams’ lists, including the likes of Chelsea, Real Madrid, Atlético Madrid, and Liverpool.
My Guess: I want to see him flying back and forth on the Chelsea flanks rather badly next year. However, I don’t think there’s a huge amount of interest coming from Stamford Bridge at this point. I think the potential for going to Real Madrid and kicking Barcelona’s ass in a sort of “told you so” kind of way will be too alluring for Ricky Q. Therefore, I’ll guess Real Madrid for 37.5 million Euros.

José Bosingwa, Right Back, Porto — Reports are already coming out of England that the 25 year old Portuguese international has agreed to join Manchester United. Porto have slapped a 30 million Euro transfer valuation on José and he seems an ideal fit to replace an aging Gary Neville. However, there will be strong interest from Spain and Italy as well and I see no reason why he couldn’t end up pairing back up with former Porto center back Pepe at Real Madrid. Bosingwa is another one of those players who is partly club-owned and partly owned by an agency. Therefore, whatever team goes after him may have to pay a bit of a premium so that Porto feel assured that they’re getting their fare share of his valuation.
My Guess: With Carlos Tevez, Manchester United have experience in dealing with convoluted ownership schemes. They also have plenty of cash, a genuine need to fill, and a hard on for all things Portuguese. With the increasing number of Chops on ManU, the move seems to make way too much sense: Manchester United for 30 million Euros.

Miguel Veloso, Defensive / Holding Midfielder, Sporting — The new young star “trinco” or holding midfielder in the Portuguese international side is Veloso. He’s an excellent holding midfielder who shuts down the advanced-middle of the pitch, and is the epitome of why there is so much outcry over the position itself: he closes attacks down before they have too much of a chance of getting started. He’s been on a meteoric rise of late and has been popping up all over English radars.
My Guess: All the talk here is Manchester United. I have no idea why. From what I can tell, they really have no serious need for a Miguel Veloso type of player. Not to say that they have any “serious” needs, but Bosingwa certainly makes a ton more of sense. Arsenal and Liverpool are on the radar as well and I see him as more of a fit in Arsene Wenger’s side than any of them. Therefore, I’ll go out on a limb and say Arsene swoops in for around 28-32 million Euros and takes the 21 year old prospect.

João Moutinho, Midfielder / Attacking Midfielder, Sporting — He’s one of the Portuguese players whose status as far as the twenty three Big Phil Scolari will be selecting for the trip to the mountains this summer is up in the air. I like the diminutive kid’s spunk and energy as well as his ability to find the open man. However, I find I can go twenty to twenty five minutes at a time during a match and not even notice he’s there. He’s a young (21) captain for Sporting and shows great maturity as well as field vision for manager Paulo Bento’s side. For me, his game is not suited well to the Premier League’s style of play. He’s probably the type of player that can see real time and benefit from the Spanish or Italian leagues.
My Guess: Again, as with all Sporting players, the big talk has been from Old Trafford and Sir Alex. He could serve as a good back up to a player like Michael Carrick but since Moutinho’s still honing his skills, planting his ass on the bench, two rows behind Sir Alex won’t do his game any good. Almost every single Premier League side that wasn’t facing relegation was supposedly tracking him. Since fun shit never happens in the transfer market, he’ll end up at Manchester United for 20 million Euros.

As the season winds down and the frequency of league news gets quieter, we’ll continue to speculate and obviously report on all the transfer news, Portuguese style, as it happens. Until then remember, Baba loves you.