Ex-Benfica man on how he got a champion to quit Sporting | OneFootball

Paulinho - who recently became a champion - ended up leaving Sporting after winning the national championship with Ruben Amorim, at which point he signed with Toluca, in Mexico. Now, Renato Paiva, former Benfica coach, has revealed the entire process that led the Portuguese striker to leave Alvalade and how he convinced the Mexican executives to pay almost 8 million euros for the player.

"The possibility of Paulinho came up and I said it was urgent, I’ll go get him right away. I call Paulinho and he’s in Cancun, on vacation. I told Paulinho, ‘from there, you come straight here,’" the Portuguese coach began to explain, speaking on the podcast ‘Sem Filtros’ from Liga Portugal.

According to the coach, Paulinho still thought twice, but he realized that if he stayed at Sporting, he would remain in the shadow of Viktor Gyokeres. After consulting with Ricardo and André Horta and asking for references about Renato Paiva, the former ‘number 20’ of the Lions called the coach back with a ‘yes’.

"I looked up Paulinho’s entire career. Just look, from the third division, at a smaller club, a medium club, a big club, and he always scored goals. That’s an indicator. At a certain point, my director says: ‘Oh Renato, that’s quite a bit of money. Are you sure?’" Renato Paiva continued, while recounting the process of convincing Toluca’s executives, with whom he even bet a dinner.

"I’m two hundred percent sure and I’ll tell you more. You’re going to buy me dinner because you’re going to sign the top scorer of the championship," he said, to which the executive replied: "Ah, now that’s an exaggeration because here we have Gignac, Chicharito…".

However, Paulinho not only ended up becoming the top scorer of the Apertura Tournament but also remained the top scorer in the next two tournaments of the Mexican league: "He had to buy me dinner because Paulinho now has three tournaments and was the top scorer in the league three times."

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