Corinthians product among top five under-21s outside Europe's big leagues | OneFootball

Corinthians have several talents developed in their youth academy spread around the world. In recent years, however, one of the prospects who has stood out the most is attacking midfielder Pedrinho, 20, who currently belongs to Zenit of Russia.

According to a survey by the CIES Football Observatory, published this Wednesday (16), the youngster is the fifth-best Under-21 player outside Europe’s five major leagues, with a score of 81.8. The calculation method takes into account performances throughout the entire last season.

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The score ranges from 0 to 100 and is calculated through statistics in eight areas of play (Impect data), the number of official minutes played, and the competitive level of those matches. Last season, for example, Pedrinho recorded three goals and five assists in 33 games. In total, he has 11 goals and 14 assists in 94 appearances for the Russian side since the middle of the 2023/2024 season.

Ahead of Pedrinho in the ranking are only four players: Gianluca Prestianni of Benfica, Portugal (86.5), Kees Smit of AZ Alkmaar, Netherlands (83.8); Matviy Ponomarenko of Dynamo Kyiv, Ukraine (82.6); and Tomás Aranda of Boca Juniors, Argentina (82.3). Developed in Corinthians’ youth academy, Pedrinho emerged as one of the club’s biggest youth prospects.

At 15, in 2022, he had his first training session with the senior squad, then coached by Portuguese manager Vitor Pereira. However, his debut only came in March 2023, under Fernando Lázaro, in a Corinthians match against Santo André in that year’s Paulista Championship, in Itaquera — a 3-1 win for Timão. After Vanderlei Luxemburgo arrived in the middle of that year, he gained more and more space and started being used more often.

However, his performances fluctuated from match to match and, in just 22 appearances in a Corinthians shirt, he registered one assist and no goals. In mid-2023, he was sold to Zenit of Russia for nine million euros (just over R$40 million at the time) for 70% of his economic rights.

Initially, Timão had kept 30%. However, in the closing stretch of 2024, former president Augusto Melo, in a confidential move, gave up the club’s share due to a debt owed to the player’s agents. As a result, in the event of a future sale of the youngster, Corinthians will receive only FIFA’s Solidarity Mechanism — covering ages 13 to 19 — which corresponds to at most 1.5% of the total value of a transfer, depending on the period in which the player was with the club’s academy teams.

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇧🇷 here.