Paulinho Added To Olympiacos Striker Shortlist | OneFootball

Paulinho of Toluca receives tge Best Player award after winning the CONCACAF Champions Cup 2026 final match between Toluca and Tigres UANL at Nemesio Diez Stadium on May 30, 2026 in Toluca, Mexico. (Photo by Hector Vivas/Getty Images)

The most interesting aspect of the Paulinho report is not necessarily Paulinho himself. It is what his name tells us about Olympiacos’ search. Mauro Icardi remains the headline option after formal contacts were reported earlier Thursday. Marius Mouandilmadji had already emerged as another possibility. Now Paulinho joins the conversation.

That suggests Olympiacos are running several striker tracks simultaneously rather than waiting for one negotiation to succeed or fail. Given the circumstances, that makes sense. Ayoub El Kaabi’s injury removed the club’s most reliable scorer abruptly and late in the market. Olympiacos cannot afford to spend several days negotiating exclusively with one player only to discover that the financial or contractual gap is too large.

So the club appears to be creating alternatives with very different profiles.

Paulinho is a very different proposition from Icardi

Icardi would be the prestige move. Paulinho would be the more functional football move.

The Portuguese striker built his reputation through intelligent movement, combination play and reliable finishing rather than celebrity.

His production in Mexico has been excellent. Greek reports cite 61 goals and 13 assists in 89 Toluca appearances, while his earlier career included substantial spells with Braga and Sporting.

That profile could actually be quite attractive for Imanol Alguacil.

Alguacil’s centre-forwards are typically required to participate in collective play rather than simply wait for chances. They need to:

press centre-backs,

connect midfield to attack,

provide wall passes,

move defenders away from central spaces,

and still finish inside the area.

Paulinho has historically been comfortable performing those duties. That potentially makes him a more natural tactical fit than a striker whose value is overwhelmingly concentrated inside the penalty area.

There is a major caveat: his current physical situation

There is also important context that should not be ignored. Recent Mexican reporting had Paulinho working his way back from injury. Toluca coach Antonio Mohamed said in late August that the striker had returned to the pitch and was expected back within roughly ten days.

That makes medical evaluation crucial. Olympiacos are searching precisely because their starting striker has suffered a serious injury. Signing another forward who is not immediately capable of handling a substantial workload would undermine the point of the move. So even if interest advances, Paulinho’s current fitness should be one of the first questions.

González changes the type of striker Olympiacos need

Armando González’s emergence also gives Olympiacos more flexibility. If González had struggled immediately, the club might have been forced to find a guaranteed first-choice striker. Instead, his goals have bought Olympiacos some breathing room. That creates a different recruitment question:

Do you sign Icardi and immediately reshape the attacking hierarchy?

Do you bring in someone like Paulinho who can compete, combine and share minutes?

Or do you spend significant transfer money on a longer-term asset such as Mouandilmadji?

Those are three quite different strategies. And Alguacil should now have significant influence over the answer.

This may be the first recruitment decision of the new structure

Evangelos Marinakis formally presented Alguacil, Antonio Cordón and Joffrey Moncada to the football operation at Rentis Thursday, describing Alguacil as one of the best coaches available and reinforcing the club’s objectives of winning the league and making a deep Europa League run.

That means the striker search is occurring immediately after Olympiacos reorganized their sporting leadership.

Ideally, the next forward should therefore represent a coordinated decision: Cordón + Moncada + Alguacil, rather than simply an emergency response to El Kaabi’s injury.