José Boto says Brazil international could have joined Benfica | OneFootball

Estêvão is shining at Chelsea - and gave the blues victory against Liverpool. José Boto revealed that the Brazilian international could have been a reinforcement for Benfica, if Portuguese football hadn't lost its standing in the South American market.

"Portugal is one of the pioneers in this type of scouting and I am perfectly comfortable talking about it, because in 2007 we started the scouting service at Benfica. But what happened wasn't just that. The European clubs that bought players from Benfica began to realize that they had to come here, directly to the source. They started coming to Brazil and hiring these youngsters. Perhaps today Benfica, Porto and Sporting no longer have the possibility of taking these players that they took between 2007 and 2015", he said, to Record newspaper.

The director explains that the national emblems lost momentum and that, if this had not happened, Estêvão could be a Benfica player: "They were easy to take and then they were resold for a lot of money. At a certain point, Real Madrid came here to get Vinícius Júnior or Rodrygo directly, Chelsea came to get Estêvão, and today it is almost impossible for a Portuguese club to get a player of this level. If it was about 10 years ago, maybe Estêvão would have gone to Benfica instead of going to Chelsea".

"This made the life of Portuguese clubs more difficult, although they know how to reinvent themselves and look for other markets always with a lot of sense. Flamengo is a bit different because we try to bring players with a bit more name and already with a curriculum, which leaves the fans a little more relaxed. It is not easy to change this mentality, this culture, and we have to adapt to it, to the place where we work. It is not easy to do in Flamengo what is done in Benfica or Porto, because here this culture does not exist", he added.

To conclude, José Boto the difference between recruitment work in Europe and South America: "Not only here, but also in other clubs that perhaps would have a greater need to do this work because they do not have the financial availability that Flamengo has. But this ends up not happening, because they prefer to bring those that Brazilians call 'medallions', sometimes with very high costs for the reality of these clubs, instead of doing more scouting work. There are many good players in Brazil, in Argentina, in Colombia and they could even compete with European clubs by bringing these players first. Flamengo, due to its size and financial availability, does not need this work as much, but it is something we do here, with players who are not known and who have a possibility of becoming known in Flamengo and not in other clubs".

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