Darwin Núñez

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Goldschmidt
Posty: 1702
Rejestracja: ndz maja 30, 2021 12:29 pm

Darwin Núñez

Post autor: Goldschmidt »

Obrazek

22-letni urugwajski napastnik
Kontrakt z Benficą do 2025 roku, jest w nim zawarta klauzula wykupu w wysokości ok. 140M euro i niektóre źródła brytyjskie podają że Benfica musi zapłacić Almerii 20% z następnego transferu, a część kwoty ma też otrzymać jego dawny agent Edgardo Valsavia
Obecnie agentem jest Jorge Mendes
187 cm wzrostu

Do tej pory Darwin był na radarze wielu klubów Premier League - oferty nieskutecznie składały w zimie West Ham United oraz Newcastle.
Jest najdroższym piłkarzem kupionym do ligi portugalskiej w historii - 24M euro zapłacone Almerii.
W reprezentacji debiut zaliczył u Tabareza w 2019 roku strzelając gola w debiucie z Peru.

Nie będę udawać, że wiem więcej na temat jego stylu, bo niewiele widziałem poza jego występami w tegorocznej Lidze Mistrzów z Barceloną, Ajaxem i Liver.
Przekleję jednak artykuł The Athletic co być może przekona niektórych do zainteresowania się tym gościem.

TL;DR
- Benfica raczej będzie chcieć zaczynać licytację od 70M euro, a chętnych kupców w Premier League i poza nie brakuje
- jest środkowym napastnikiem ale lubi schodzić do lewego skrzydła czego doskonałym przykładem jest bramka na 1-0 z Barceloną na Estadio da Luz
- co do osobowości to raczej typowy opanowany i zadziorny Urugwajczyk, szczególnie sugerując się historyjką z telefonem w sklepie


Darwin Nunez, Benfica’s €70m striker who thrives in the ‘Thierry Henry channel’

From the club that brought you Ederson, Jan Oblak, Bernardo Silva, Joao Felix, Joao Cancelo and Ruben Dias among others, please welcome your latest ready-made transfer to an elite European team, complete with rough edges smoothed, Benfica-style: introducing… Darwin Nunez.

If you’re new to the 22-year-old Uruguayan forward, The Athletic must report that you are a little way behind the scouting departments of a few pretty big clubs. Our David Ornstein reported on Monday that the scrum of elite sides gathering to register an interest has been streamlined slightly, with Manchester United, Chelsea and Paris Saint-Germain the leading contenders to sign him.

West Ham United failed with a bid in January. Newcastle United tried too. His former agent (more on that shortly) suggested that Atletico Madrid were the club who had shown the most interest.

Whoever wants to pluck Nunez off the Benfica production line will have to start the bidding at around €70 million. And, as ever, that will represent a very tidy profit and will reward a not insignificant risk when the Lisbon club plucked him from the Spanish second division 19 months ago.

The expectation is very much that Nunez will move on somewhere this summer, and he even took the slightly unusual step of announcing on Twitter that he will be changing agents, moving away from his Uruguayan representative Edgardo Lasalvia, and looks to be heading for the extensive Jorge Mendes stable instead.

Things could get a little complicated, though: Nunez’s deal with Lasalvia expires in June, meaning there could be some crossover, and Lasalvia is unsurprisingly not keen to give up any windfall from such a lucrative move. Nunez also clarified that he and his family had not been threatened, which was in response to a report in the Portuguese newspaper Record that suggested he had to hire extra security when he was on international duty in March.

This might not be the most straightforward transfer in the world, but will it be worthwhile for whoever cuts through all the treacle?

The basic facts suggest: yes.

Nunez has 31 goals in all competitions for Benfica this season, with a hat-trick against Belenenses on Saturday taking his league tally to 24 in 20 starts — that’s nine clear at the top of the Liga NOS goals chart. And all this in a below-par Benfica side: they have done well in Europe but are off the pace in Portugal, 15 points behind leaders Porto and nine adrift of city rivals Sporting.

He’s scored big goals too: his header sent Benfica through to the Champions League quarter-finals at the expense of Ajax, and he’s netted against Barcelona, Bayern Munich and, last week, Liverpool.

He also comes with impeccable references. “He was Benfica’s most expensive purchase, and when there is no pandemic, he will be the most expensive sale,” Jorge Jesus, the Benfica head coach who signed him, said last season. “He will be a world-class player.”

A national-team colleague was on the case pretty early, too. “I have 15 years of international experience,” said fellow striker Luis Suarez, explaining that he urged Barcelona to sign Nunez during his time at the Nou Camp. “I know a thing or two about forwards. And I told them, ‘Pay attention to this one, he’s very good’.”

Nunez came through back home at Penarol, in capital city Montevideo, but his early career was disrupted a little by knee injuries. He didn’t actually make too many first-team appearances before ambitious Spanish second-tier side Almeria signed him in the summer of 2019, shortly after he turned 20.

He only spent a season there, scoring a respectable if not spectacular 16 goals in 30 games as Almeria finished fourth, then lost in the semi-finals of the promotion play-offs. But Benfica saw enough to pay a club-record €24 million for him. “They were paying for the potential,” says David Badia, who was Almeria’s assistant manager while Nunez was there. “And also how much he improved in such a short time.”

That rapid improvement has been a characteristic of his young career so far, and is one of the reasons so many clubs are keen to move for him now. His pandemic-disrupted debut season in Portugal was fairly modest, 14 goals in 44 appearances across all competitions, and it’s only in this one that he has burst into the wider consciousness, with those goals and his general performances.

Nunez has most frequently played as a central forward for Benfica this season, as this graphic illustrates…
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…but he’s not really a centre-forward, despite looking like one. He’s 6ft 2in tall, broad-chested and rapid, his size making his pace all the more terrifying for defenders who might consider getting in his way. In fact, combine that with his long hair and stick him in the light blue shirt of Uruguay and, at first glance, you might think you’re looking at another Edinson Cavani.

But he’s a very different player to his compatriot and fellow front man. For a start, despite most frequently playing more centrally, Nunez also plays quite a bit to the left when Benfica set up in a 3-4-3/3-4-2-1 formation, behind one of Roman Yaremchuk or Haris Seferovic.

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And even when he is nominally starting in the middle, he often does much of his good work from the left, operating in what you might call the “Thierry Henry channel” — not a winger, not quite even a wide forward, but drifting in and out of those bits of the pitch where defenders aren’t.

The sense is that Nunez often does his best work on the counter-attack, in games where Benfica are obliged to sit back — usually in Europe — and use his pace and strength on the break, and his directness to forge goalscoring opportunities on his own.

Take this goal against Barcelona in the Champions League group stage in September.

Julian Weigl picks up the ball in Benfica’s half and Nunez immediately sprints down the left…

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…Weigl finds him with a pass down the line, which takes Nunez towards the corner, with Barcelona defender Eric Garcia close at hand. Danger for the Catalans looks minimal at this point.

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But Nunez cuts infield at pace, flummoxing Garcia with a couple of stepovers…

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…before firing a shot low into the bottom corner, past Marc-Andre ter Stegen.

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It isn’t quite creating something from nothing and it probably should have been defended better, but it’s a counter-attack that could easily have petered out were it not for Nunez’s dynamism and directness.

It would be tempting for someone watching Nunez for the first time to think of him as a target man, but observers in Portugal also suggest he’s at his best when playing alongside someone filling that role, rather than doing it himself. He can and has played as a No 9 but, hypothetically, should Chelsea sign him, that wouldn’t necessarily mean he’s a replacement for Romelu Lukaku. He could just as easily play with the Belgian.

Speak to those who have worked with Nunez and they say he’s a relatively quiet but friendly character, accommodating to selfie-seekers who stop him on the street, and not excessively concerned with the trappings of football.

“We were in a shop,” remembers Almeria colleague Badia. “He was buying a phone, but it was just a normal one, not the top, most expensive one he could find. I asked why he wasn’t buying a better phone. He said, ‘This is enough — I can call people with this’.”

People also speak of a player incredibly focused on his game and improving in any way he can.

Upon joining Almeria, for example, he hired his own nutritionist and physical conditioning coach in addition to the support provided by the club. This resulted in performance numbers described as “stratospheric”. Remember, he was only just out of his teens when he moved to southern Spain.

“Everyone was expecting a lot from him,” says Badia. “He was very hard-working. He developed himself brilliantly in terms of tactical know-how, physical condition, movement.”

The latter quality is emphasised: “He improved the tempo of losing his marker: where he should run, what movements he should make.”

That improvement is illustrated by a number of goals he’s scored this season, one example being an ostensibly unremarkable strike in the league against Santa Clara in February.

Winger Rafa Silva collects the ball to the right of the penalty area, with Nunez close to his marker at the far post…

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…Roman Yaremchuk takes over possession just inside the box, and while the defender on him moves towards the danger, Nunez hangs back, recognising that space is being created and that he should position himself in the best spot to take advantage…

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…meaning that when the cross is clipped over from the byline, he’s got plenty of room to finish.

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It’s a relatively simple movement, but one that shows Nunez’s game is evolving. Add that to his natural gifts, and you can see why people are so excited. “The combination of his size and his speed — he’s amazing,” says Badia. “He can arrive half a second before the defender. Half a second is so important.”

There is an inevitable concern with a player with this sort of expected fee who has only really put in notable performances for one season, and in a domestic league that is a step or two below the top flights in, say, England, Spain and Italy.

Of course, it is difficult to predict how Nunez might perform in the Premier League, but the following smarterscout pizza chart suggests at least some of his statistics compare favourably with other forwards already playing in England.

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Smarterscout gives players ratings from zero to 99 for various qualities, and in this case they are adjusted to how Nunez might perform compared with other Premier League strikers.

As you can see, he rates very highly in terms of expected goals from shot creation (88 out of 99) and ball progression (90 out of 99), which shows how much his actions contribute to his team’s chances on goal. He is also quick to get a shot away with the touches he has (shot volume: 88 out of 99).

He’s not so active in the air (aerial duels quantity: 16 out of 99), and smarterscout does suggest that, while he does dribble a lot, he’s not great at retaining the ball: his rating here is just two out of 99, while his pass completion percentage is 53.7 — that’s in the bottom one per cent of strikers across Europe according to StatsBomb.

Beyond the statistics are the intangibles, not least his clear capacity for improvement, but also Benfica’s eye for talent.

They bring in players not only because they think they will suit their team, but because they think they will suit others too — others with deeper pockets than they do and lofty ambitions.

“We depend on player trading,” chief executive Domingos Soares de Oliveira told The Athletic’s James Horncastle recently. “It’s a kind of pipeline, where we have talented players — some coming through the academy, and others that we bought at an earlier stage. We try to produce an additional revenue stream with these guys in order to support the investments we have to do with others.”

Nunez looks to be the next one on the move, possibly to a club near you.

“He’s a player who knows what he is,” says Badia. “He knows where he came from. He doesn’t have butterflies in his head. He likes to be at the centre — I don’t want to say selfish, but he’s a striker. He likes to score goals.”



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Goldschmidt
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Rejestracja: ndz maja 30, 2021 12:29 pm

Re: Darwin Núñez

Post autor: Goldschmidt »

Swoją drogą poniżej wklejam też treść artykułu odnośnie modelu biznesowego Benfici.

When Manuel Rui Costa was 16, legend has it he was admitted to hospital with appendicitis. It was the spring of 1988 and his team, Benfica, were in the semi-finals of the European Cup. No matter how unwell he felt, the teenager absolutely had to be there when Benfica played Steaua Bucharest at the Estadio da Luz. As a boy, he’d heard stories about the legendary team of Eusebio and Mario Coluna reaching the final five times in the 1960s. For his generation, this was it.

The tie was delicately poised after a stalemate in Romania a fortnight earlier. Rui Costa couldn’t miss it and so he apparently discharged himself from the ward and was in the stands with 120,000 others to watch Rui Aguas score a brace and send Benfica through to their first final in this competition for 20 years. Defeat to PSV Eindhoven in a penalty shoot-out followed in Stuttgart but the Eagles returned to the final in 1990 where, unfortunately, Bela Guttman’s curse endured and Arrigo Sacchi’s AC Milan prevailed.

On a grey Tuesday morning in Lisbon, young Benfica fans wished to have the same experience Rui Costa did all those years ago ahead of their quarter-final against Liverpool. “You cannot kill the dream,” Benfica’s CEO Domingos Soares de Oliveira tells The Athletic. The economic stratification of the European game since Rui Costa’s day — back when gate receipts at the Estadio da Luz helped place Benfica on a more equal footing with the continent’s other giants — makes it feel more like an impossible dream now than it did in the past. Benfica have to be realistic. Liverpool put five past Portugal’s undefeated league leaders Porto at the Dragao in September. They are one of the favourites to win the competition, maybe one of the best Premier League teams of all time. But hope dies hard.

“If you ask the management, the coach, the players, they all live the dream right now,” Soares de Oliveira insisted on the eve of the game. “Let’s talk tomorrow night but for the time being we live the dream.”

Few teams can rival Benfica’s history and tradition in this competition. To pass Eusebio’s statue and see that coral coloured shirt is to be reminded of the role this club played in establishing the European Cup as the absolute pinnacle of club football on this continent. Real Madrid may have won the first five editions of what would evolve into the Champions League. The competition became entwined in their DNA. The same promised to be true of Benfica who made it to four finals in the opening five years of the following decade.

Reaching one today would be extraordinary just as it was when Ajax came so close a couple of years ago. These two legendary clubs are almost condemned by geography, limited in earning power by small TV markets in leagues outside the top five. As fate would have it one knocked the other out to qualify for the quarter-finals with Darwin Nunez’s header at the Johan Cruyff Arena ensuring Benfica progressed to this stage for the first time since 2016. What was once the norm is now an exception. The ordinary now the extraordinary.

“You see clubs like ours, clubs like Ajax, like Villarreal. They are the underdogs,” Soares de Oliveira says. “The ones no one is expecting to see.” A smile lights up on his face when he recalls events in Turin a fortnight ago. “I take the example of my good friend Fernando Roig when his team beat Juventus. I think the odds were much more on the Juventus side than on Villarreal. We had these experiences too. (In 2013 and 2014) We played two Europa League finals (losing in stoppage time to Chelsea in Amsterdam then Sevilla) and in the qualification phase we succeeded against clubs (Juventus, Tottenham and Newcastle) that were much richer than us.”

As Luisao, the towering centre-back turned technical director, watched the draw in UEFA’s House of Football, fond memories like these and the time Benfica knocked holders Liverpool out in 2006, take you into a realm of the imagination where nothing is impossible. They are what make football the beautiful game and highlight the jeopardy of sport when an element of meritocracy is still at its core, something that was missing from the Super League proposals.

“We can understand the idea behind the concept from the clubs in order to generate additional revenues,” Soares de Oliveira empathises, “We — and when I say ‘we’ it’s not only Benfica, it’s the football family and the majority of the clubs who were not part of the Super League — We believe meritocracy is extremely important.

“A closed league maybe took place in other parts of the globe but not at European level. We think UEFA is a key partner and what I saw in the last general assembly of the European Club Association (ECA) in Vienna a week ago was a strong relationship between UEFA and ECA. This goes in the right direction. The ECA is the entity that is responsible for defending the club’s interest and working hand-in-hand with UEFA, having a Memorandum of Understanding that’s very clear, having Aleksander Ceferin also attending our general assembly. All those things are going in the right direction. In a certain sense I am sure that the big clubs will continue to play among the big clubs but it should not be a closed competition. It has to be under the rules established with us.”

What the NFL and NBA do have going for them though is more variation in who challenges for the biggest prize of all. Monaco, Schalke, Lyon, Ajax and Roma have reached semi-finals over the last decade but that has proven a glass ceiling and they have subsequently been broken up. Vultures pick off the Eagles and the environment is now even more challenging.

“There are some issues the industry has not faced in the past,” Soares de Oliveira explains. “One is Brexit. Brexit for sure will impact the majority of clubs because I would say 90 per cent of the clubs (in Portugal) depend on player trading in order to reach their target in terms of figures. Brexit made things a little bit more complicated especially when it comes to UK clubs and even if it is not directly it can be indirectly because if the UK clubs invest more inside the UK and less outside at the end of the day it will affect clubs like Benfica. Brexit had a strong impact. COVID had a strong impact in terms of the revenues you missed like matchday revenues. But it also affected player spending.” Between 2019 and 2021 the transfer market contracted from $7.4bn to $4.9bn.

“We had the deal for Ruben Dias in August 2020″ when Man City paid Benfica €68 million for their homegrown centre-back, “and since then nothing because the clubs were a little bit frozen in terms of investments. Now we have the crisis in Ukraine which apart from the real problems, of course, affects investments from Russians who could invest in clubs and did invest in some clubs.”

This year marks a decade since Zenit Saint Petersburg paid Benfica €40 million for Axel Witsel. Only last summer, Shakhtar Donetsk stumped up €18 million for Pedrinho. “We are facing different crises that affect the market and especially the football industry as we have never seen before,” Soares de Oliveira continues.

These are turbulent times in the world and Benfica has been shaken up a lot in the last year. The club’s longstanding president Luis Filipe Vieira resigned after a judge ordered him to be kept under house arrest amid an investigation into tax fraud and money laundering. “We had elections in October,” Soares de Oliveira says. “We changed president. The previous president was in charge since 2003. It’s a huge change. Now we have Rui Costa. It’s the first time in Portugal that a former player became president. It’s something that, in my opinion, goes in the right direction. I have some friends in the same position too, as was the case with Karl-Heinz Rummenigge (at Bayern Munich) and Edwin van der Sar (at Ajax).”

Benfica could have done with Rui Costa on the pitch on Tuesday night although his memories of Liverpool are of coming on in extra time in Istanbul for AC Milan in 2005. “He was already a good No 10, now I think he’s a good No 1 and, by No 1, I don’t mean goalkeeper,” Soares de Oliveira laughs. “We’ve worked together since he retired as a player and joined the board. I think we’ve been working together since 2009. That’s a long time and I think it’s a good thing. It’s more or less the same situation as Kalle and Edwin’s. They had the time to prepare themselves for this position. The fact they live football, love football and have so much experience.

“This is the trend for the future. I think you’ll see more and more football players in this position. Rui knows what’s happening on the pitch. He knows what’s happening in the board room. He knows what’s happening in the different institutions that control and manage football. He also has experience as a businessman not only because of his success in his personal life but because he has more than 10 years’ experience as a board member. The same situations that I’ve experienced. If we talk about sponsors, strategies for increasing matchday revenues, TV rights, he knows. It’s very positive for the club and for the industry.”

The season so far at Benfica has been one of ups and downs. On the one hand, they defeated Barcelona for the first time since 1961 and won in Amsterdam after 43 years. Reaching the last eight of the Champions League is worth an estimated €65.33 million (close to one Ruben Dias).

On the other, Benfica parted company with Jorge Jesus before Christmas. Jesus had returned to the Estadio da Luz on a high after winning the Copa Libertadores with Flamengo. But he was unable to repeat his past success at the club. Benfica were then knocked out of the cup by Sporting and haven’t managed to regain lost ground in the Primeira Liga under serial caretaker boss, Nelson Verissimo, who has instead blooded youngsters like Paulo Bernardo and Morato. Benfica warmed up for the Liverpool game by losing away to Braga for the first time in seven and a half years and slipped nine points off the final automatic qualification place for the Champions League. On the home front at least this risks turning into Benfica’s most disappointing season since 2008.

“As you mentioned, the fact that we are right now third in the Portuguese league means that if we finish in this position then our things become a little bit more complicated,” Soares de Oliveira admits. “There’s always a risk when you go to the third qualifying round of the Champions League and then the play-offs. We had a good result this season. But you never know what’s going to happen next season.”

PSV were the team Benfica had to overcome to make the group stages in August, a revenge of sorts for the 1988 European Cup final and, if the latest reports in Portugal are to be believed, it’s their coach, Roger Schmidt, whom the Eagles consider to the right man to make them a contender again this summer. Whoever Rui Costa settles on, they will have to buy into the Benfica model.

“We depend on player trading,” Soares de Oliveira says. “It’s a kind of pipeline where we have talented players — some coming through the academy (Dias, Joao Cancelo, Bernardo Silva, Joao Felix, Renato Sanches) and others that we bought at an earlier stage (Ederson, Jan Oblak, David Luiz, Darwin Nunez, Luka Jovic, Lazar Markovic, Axel Witsel, Talisca). We try to produce an additional revenue stream with these guys in order to support the investments we have to do with others. It’s quite complicated because by the end of the season, if there’s a good offer you will most probably lose your best player. But it’s also a challenge to nurture and create players who will succeed in one, two or three years from now. The academy is extremely important in this process.”

A study by the Swiss think-tank CIES published earlier this month showed that, since July 2015, Benfica’s Seixal academy is the most profitable in Europe, bringing in a colossal €379 million. That’s not a bad return on the €10 million investment Benfica make in it every year. “It’s important to have a similar vision from all internal stakeholders,” Soares de Oliveira underlines. “So the coach we have in the first team knows it’s important to promote some young players that are right now playing for the Under-19s or the B team. It’s part of a strategy and at the end of the day you can cope with this strategy.

“You can be very focused and have strong success. But you have the theory and then the practical terms. Some coaches are more focused on promoting young players. Others are more focused on having guys who are mature and experienced to deliver results. It’s our responsibility as a board to try in every moment to align again the strategy with what we have defined as the strategy.”

It has allowed Benfica to punch above its weight and have a chance of competing in the Champions League. Still, you wonder what if they were able to keep hold of their stars for longer. Rui Costa spent three seasons in the first team before Fiorentina lured him to Serie A to play with Gabriel Batistuta. Nowadays Joao Felix and Renato Sanches are gone after a year. Bernardo Silva didn’t play more than half an hour for the first team before he was loaned and then sold to Monaco. Paulo Bernardo could be next.

“Benfica’s ability to retain talent is limited,” Soares de Oliveira says. “We can retain players at an early age but it’s impossible to retain them forever. What we have done until now is try to have similar growth to the big clubs (elsewhere in Europe). If they grow by 15 per cent, we have to grow by 15 per cent. Portugal is such a small country. The amount of revenues you can generate internally is very limited. The majority of our sponsors are non-Portuguese companies; Emirates, the Heineken Group, Adidas, Repsol. Among our top 10 sponsors, we have one Portuguese company.”

Foreign investment has been slow to enter the Portuguese game although Estoril and Casa Pia are now in Spanish and American hands while Flamengo have been exploring synergies with Tondela. Last year, the US businessman John Textor was introduced by an investment bank to one of the shareholders in Benfica’s limited company, Jose Antonio dos Santos, and explored gradually building a stake in it. In the end it came to nothing.

In a statement, Textor called Benfica “the sleeping giant in world football” and wrote: “I believe I may be one of the people that can bring ideas to the Benfica community that can help improve the capitalisation and the revenues of the club, for a purpose that is right for the fans… the goal to keep many more of the best players of SL Benfica playing for SL Benfica. It’s clear that the thrill of playing in the Champions League, for Benfiquistas, has become less of a thrill, and more of an expectation. Shouldn’t it now be the goal to win?”

Upon reflection, Soares de Oliveira says while it ultimately didn’t happen the very entertainment of Textor’s interest represented a shift in mentality within Portuguese football. “For the first time, the behaviour was of an open company. It was no longer: ‘We are here and no one can come in’. I think the trend today is that the Portuguese clubs — and I’m talking about Benfica but I could say the same things from the others — they have to be open in terms of potentially new investors in the clubs depending on two major things.

“One is that the clubs — and I think Porto, Sporting and Benfica have the same vision — cannot lose the majority they have in the listed company. But they would welcome new shareholders if, for example, they would allow them to move on geographical terms in terms of sponsorship and getting better conditions in terms of financing. So they should be open to new investors if there’s some added value from those investors, although I don’t think one of those three clubs can lose the majority in their listed company.”

In the meantime the focus has to be on getting Benfica back to doing what they do best as well as growing the domestic pie.

Soares de Oliveira feels the way to do that is to centralise the local TV rights by 2028, if not earlier, as part of an effort to make the competitiveness of Portuguese football a bit deeper. Private equity group CVC have, in the past, expressed an interest in investing in the league just as they have done in La Liga. “I think we’re missing something other leagues have which is a second tier in terms of the clubs that could perform well at European level,” says Soares de Oliveira.

“Usually it’s always these four clubs (Benfica, Sporting, Porto and Braga). Then you might have a Vitoria Guimaraes or a Maritimo. But it’s difficult for them to perform well. If you look at why Portugal is suffering in the European co-efficient compared with the Dutch league it’s mainly because there are lots of clubs in the Netherlands that perform well in the Conference League. We don’t have the same situation here in Portugal.”

But look on the bright side.

“In European terms even if it is only four clubs the fact that in a small country we had three teams in the group phase of the Champions League, Benfica are in the quarter-finals of the Champions League and Braga the quarter-final of the Europa League is quite interesting.”

It’s hard to expect much more. In the first half last night, it looked like Liverpool were going to run up the score just as they had done in Porto. Goals from Ibrahima Konate and Sadio Mane put them 2-0 up at the break and frankly it could have been worse. The surprise was how close Benfica came to fighting back. For a fleeting moment it felt like a repeat of the game against Ajax here when Verissimo’s men twice came from behind to keep the tie in the balance ahead of the away leg.

Rafa Silva sparked Benfica into life and Nunez delivered. The Uruguayan’s goal at the start of the second half was his fifth in the competition this season and the calibre of his opponents he has scored against — Barcelona, Bayern, Ajax and Liverpool — makes the hype he is generating understandable. The 22-year-old’s goal did not have the feeling of a consolation but a call to arms.

All of a sudden the Estadio da Luz was bouncing again and the dream, to borrow Soares de Oliveira’s phrase, was well and truly alive. Darwin felt he should have had a penalty. Alisson had hearts in mouths when he almost played himself into trouble under pressure from Rafa. But he never got round the goalkeeper in the style of Luis Diaz, who restored Liverpool’s two-goal advantage after Naby Keita slipped him through one-against-one with Odysseas Vlachodimos.

It was an appropriately Darwinian end to the game, but sadly not in the way Benfica fans would have liked. Liverpool were able to sign the best player in Portugal over the winter, one that had never been on the losing side at the Estadio da Luz. They paid €45 million for him and the signing was still framed as a bargain in a Premier League context.

The strongest got stronger and ultimately survived.

Diaz’s role in Benfica’s defeat was a painful parable setting their place in the football order in stark relief again.


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lukecik
Posty: 442
Rejestracja: ndz maja 30, 2021 9:46 pm

Re: Darwin Núñez

Post autor: lukecik »

Pisałem jakiś czas temu, że obecnie widzę trzech gości, którzy mogą być czołowymi dziewiątkami na świecie przez najbliższe lata. Haaland w City, Vlahovic w Juve, został tylko Nunez do wzięcia.
No soy solo perfecto - soy Madridista tambien.

"W stepie szerokim, którego okiem nawet sokolim nie zmierzysz... Wstań, unieś głowę, wsłuchaj się w słowa pieśni o Małym Rycerzu."
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Clif
Posty: 341
Rejestracja: ndz maja 30, 2021 5:03 pm

Re: Darwin Núñez

Post autor: Clif »

Przy fiasku z Mbappe bym brał bez większego zastanowienia.
Jeśli mówimy o kwotach rzędu 80 mln, to ryzyko nie jest takie wielkie. Jak gość wypali to możemy mieć spokój ducha odnośnie emerytury Karima. Jak nie wypali to da się opchnąć pewnie z niewielką stratą.
Liczby się zgadzają, sądząc po mentalności Urugwajczyków pod tym względem też powinno być dobrze, transfery z ligi portugalskiej wychodzą nam zazwyczaj na duży plus, chce go ponoć Klopp co też jest sporą rekomendacją. A my potrzebujemy napastnika który da nadzieję na wejście na TOP, nie półśrodki.
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arturzyx

Re: Darwin Núñez

Post autor: arturzyx »

Clif pisze: pn maja 30, 2022 2:15 pm Jak nie wypali to da się opchnąć pewnie z niewielką stratą.
Raczej nie powiedziałbym, że uda się go opchnąć. Jovic jako przykład. Opchnąć to da się kogoś takiego jak Gnabry czy Jesus, bo oni już się sprawdzili w poważnych ligach przez dłuższy czas. Transfery z mniejszych lig lub po jednym problemie mogą być problemem. Dużo też zależy od charakteru i to zainteresowanie Kloppa dobrze świadczy, bo Real ostatnio z charakterami nie trafiał. Oprócz Jovicia też Hazard nie był dobrze sprawdzony pod tym względem
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Clif
Posty: 341
Rejestracja: ndz maja 30, 2021 5:03 pm

Re: Darwin Núñez

Post autor: Clif »

Nie no, case Jovica to przypadek totalnie patologiczny, zdarza się raz na 100 lat. Przecież takiego Ceballosa co nic nie grał udało się nawet opychać na wypożyczenie do Arsenalu, teraz pewnie z chęcią by go przytulił Betis, Odegaard też wzięty przez Arsenal, rzadkiego Mayorala brała Roma. To nie jest tak, że gość będzie miał kontrakt Hazarda czy zdrowie Bale'a, amator się zawsze znajdzie.
Nie wypali to pójdzie gdzieś za 25 mln i tyle.
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Goldschmidt
Posty: 1702
Rejestracja: ndz maja 30, 2021 12:29 pm

Re: Darwin Núñez

Post autor: Goldschmidt »

To absolutnie nie jest już takie proste Clif.
Z opychaniem niechcianych trzeba myśleć ostrożnie, gdy w obecnych czasach mamy rosnącą władzę graczy i agentów na rynkach transferowych. Real nawet u Darwina będzie tylko jedną z wielu ofert na stole i klub będzie musiał mu przedstawić atrakcyjne warunki. Tym bardziej że przychodziłby konkurować z zawodnikiem nie do usadzenia. Więc łatwiej w takich przypadkach o przelicytowanie i pozostanie z typowym odpadem kontraktowym, który wobec braku używania przez trenera traci wiarę w rozwój i zrezygnowany odcina kupony.

Koniec końców to by inwestycja się zwróciła jest także zadaniem trenera, a u nas z tym było naprawdę słabo, tym bardziej że gdy już gości sprzedajemy to wyglądają warci zachodu (nawet Odegaard w Arsenalu był już kluczowy do wyścigu po top4). Nie można myśleć już tak że kupimy i najwyżej sprzedamy, bo by sprzedać to albo musi się znaleźć frajer (a o takich coraz trudniej) albo zawodnik musi złapać formę chociaż na jakieś kilka tygodni by kogoś przekonać do siebie. Ostatecznie tak czy tak trzeba inwestować w zawodników czas, o który w Realu bywa trudno (słusznie lub niesłusznie). Albo jeżeli chcemy robić to co dotychczas, tj. do usranej śmierci wmawiać im że muszą być cierpliwi wobec obecności bardziej doświadczonych kolegów, to przynajmniej gość od skautingu i trener muszą być kurewsko wybredni i mieć oko do osobowości by dobierać takich Vazquezów co to wychodzą i gryzą trawę nawet jeżeli dostają po 10 minut na sezon, zamiast tych których ambicja nie pozwala im przyspawać się do ławki, lub takich których trzeba niańczyć, pieścić być mieć z nich ostatecznie pożytek.
arturzyx

Re: Darwin Núñez

Post autor: arturzyx »

Trzeba próbować sprawdzać ambicje piłkarza i jak będzie za bardzo zainteresowany kasą, a nie projektem sportowym, to potem w razie niewypału nawet euro nie odpuści i będzie siedział do końca kontraktu. Taki Jovic czy Mariano na pewno chętnie graliby w innych ekipach, ale jak mają do wyboru grę za 30-50% aktualnej pensji, to aż tak to nie i siedzą na ciepłej ławce. Przecież można też dać opcję podwyżki po spełnieniu określonych celów i wtedy byłoby łatwiej, ale czy Urugwajczyk poszedłby na to wiedząc, że zaczyna od ławki jest jeszcze przepaść do podstawowego napastnika? Wątpię.
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Clif
Posty: 341
Rejestracja: ndz maja 30, 2021 5:03 pm

Re: Darwin Núñez

Post autor: Clif »

Goldschmidt pisze: pn maja 30, 2022 2:47 pm To absolutnie nie jest już takie proste Clif.
Wiesz co, ja naprawdę rozumiem, że to nie jest Footbal Manager i rzeczywistość jest trochę bardziej skomplikowana.
Ale też wydaje mi się, że patrzycie na to w zbyt wyrachowany sposób. Piłka to nie jest matematyka, jakby nie patrzeć piłka (przynajmniej na tym poziomie) to show business. Ludzie łakną emocji, których nie da im Rudiger, Tchouameni, albo De Tomas czy inny weteran ściągnięty awaryjnie na 9tkę. Ludzie potrzebują transferu, o którym będą dyskutować ile to on nie strzeli, czy nie ośmieszy jakimś kanałem Pique, etc, etc. Gościa który trochę rozpali wyobraźnie, dla którego przyjdą na stadion zobaczyć co on pokaże. Przecież na tym polegała cała filozofia Galacticos - Perez dawał ludziom igrzyska z gladiatorem Figo, Zidanem, Ronaldo etc. etc. On to rozumie jak nikt, przecież wiele razy powtarzał że najdroższe transfery są najtańsze. Z Mbappe idea była podobna.

Ja absolutnie nie stawiam tu tezy, że Nunez to jest jakiś współczesny galactico. Nie jest i to jest jasne. Ale po fiasku z Mbappe, gdzie jednak ten nastrój ostro siadł, madridistas po prostu potrzebują takiego impulsu, nadziei, kogoś na kogo debiut będą czekać. Wiadomo, że każdy transfer to będzie marny ersatz francuskiej primadonny, ale trzeba dać choćby to. Dlatego ja uważam, że transfer do ataku jest niezbędny i to transfer duży. De Tomasa a tym bardziej Mayorala to wszyscy zleją. Ale taki młody Urus, co ładuje brameczkę co 78 minut, wyładowano na niego te 80 baniek i to sprzątnięto sprzed nosa Kloppowi? Jest potencjał. Spłaci się z koszulek :D .
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Krul
Posty: 391
Rejestracja: pt cze 04, 2021 10:04 am

Re: Darwin Núñez

Post autor: Krul »

Jakoś nie mam przekonania do napastników z takich ogórkowych lig. Diaz w LFC robi niezła robotę, ale byłbym mocno sceptyczny do tego.

Typowa 9tka, dla której nie ma miejsca na dzień dzisiejszy to inna sprawa.
UMARŁ KRÓL, NIECH ŻYJE KRUL.
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lukexpl
Posty: 1291
Rejestracja: ndz maja 30, 2021 8:34 pm

Re: Darwin Núñez

Post autor: lukexpl »



:lol: :lol: :lol:

Dobrze, że go nie kupiliśmy. Jović 2.0
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Goldschmidt
Posty: 1702
Rejestracja: ndz maja 30, 2021 12:29 pm

Re: Darwin Núñez

Post autor: Goldschmidt »

Jović miał przed sobą kolesia na 25 bramek w sezonie i trenera który nie wiedział jak lub w ogóle nie chciał z nim rozmawiać. Darwin ma pana cytowanego poniżej.
Klopp: “There are a lot of similarities (between Lewandowski and Nunez), to be honest,” the Liverpool manager said. “Yes, I think Lewy would tell the same story. We had shooting sessions where he didn’t finish off one.

“We had bets all the time for €10 where I said, ‘If you score more than 10 times I will pay you €10 and if you don’t you have to pay me’. My pocket was full of money.
;)
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lukexpl
Posty: 1291
Rejestracja: ndz maja 30, 2021 8:34 pm

Re: Darwin Núñez

Post autor: lukexpl »

Tak czy siak kończenie takich sytuacji to już nie jest kwestia trenera, a raczej psychiki, więc jeśli już to jest to sprawa dla psychologa. Niemniej nie przypominam sobie przypadku środkowego napastnika, który notorycznie marnował okazje bramkowe, a później "wyszedł na ludzi". No chyba, że podciągnąć pod to Benzeme :ptak: Porównanie do Lewego wg mnie nietrafione, bo Lewy przyszedł do BVB z o wiele słabszej ligi i z o wiele słabszego zespołu. Nunez w lidze portugalskiej jakoś nie miał problemów z trafianiem do siatki, a nawet w LM pakował je gigantom. Taki Haaland jakoś problemów po zmianie zespołu i ligi nie ma.
Marcins
Posty: 330
Rejestracja: ndz maja 30, 2021 5:43 pm

Re: Darwin Núñez

Post autor: Marcins »

Malo tego, porownajcie statsy goscia, iloec strzalow i sytuacji na mecz to nakrywa czapka nawet Hallanda
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Goldschmidt
Posty: 1702
Rejestracja: ndz maja 30, 2021 12:29 pm

Re: Darwin Núñez

Post autor: Goldschmidt »

Portugalia też jest skokiem, kulturowym, językowym czy jakościowym. Do tego kosztował więcej niż Haaland. A trener jak już się przekonaliśmy z Vinim też może być odpowiednim 'psychologiem'. Calma.

@Marcins
To raczej świadczy o nim bardzo dobrze, a nie odwrotnie.
Marcins
Posty: 330
Rejestracja: ndz maja 30, 2021 5:43 pm

Re: Darwin Núñez

Post autor: Marcins »

Bardzo dobrze jesli chodzi o ustawienie na boisku, to oczywsite. Mnoe bardziej chodzilo o aspekt psychiki i wykonczenia sytuacji.
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lukexpl
Posty: 1291
Rejestracja: ndz maja 30, 2021 8:34 pm

Re: Darwin Núñez

Post autor: lukexpl »

Goldschmidt pisze: pt gru 30, 2022 4:44 pm Portugalia też jest skokiem, kulturowym, językowym czy jakościowym. Do tego kosztował więcej niż Haaland. A trener jak już się przekonaliśmy z Vinim też może być odpowiednim 'psychologiem'. Calma.
Jakoś Luis Diaz nie miał problemów z adaptacją i z marszu stał się kluczowym graczem The Reds. A Vini to akurat skrzydłowy, tutaj raczej jest więcej przypadków pozytywnej zmiany pod względem wykończenia akcji.

Z kolei ilość sytuacji więcej mówi o całej drużynie niż o pojedynczym zawodniku. Napastnik ma za zadanie wykorzystywać sytuacje, a Nunez tego nie robi. Niemniej taki Salah też dużo marnuje, przez co LFC też jest w tym sezonie w dupie.
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