Botafogo eye Ferraresi, face Messi’s club competition | OneFootball

The list of departures from São Paulo for the next season may gain another member: defender Ferraresi.

Media outlets reported, and AVANTE MEU TRICOLOR confirmed on Wednesday (10), that the 27-year-old Venezuelan, at Morumbi since 2022 and a starter for his national team, has received an inquiry from Botafogo.

The problem for the Rio de Janeiro team is that Ferraresi has another club interested: Inter Miami, the U.S. team where Lionel Messi plays.

Sources from the defender’s staff who spoke to the press indicated that the coach of the American team, Javier Mascherano, called personally to express his interest in signing him.

Inter Miami has been monitoring Ferraresi’s situation since the beginning of the year. São Paulo left the door open for a possible departure in January, when they were still in the U.S. for pre-season, but no official offer was made. The reason was that the franchise had already exceeded the limit of foreign players.

Ferraresi has a contract with Tricolor until the end of 2027 and has experienced ups and downs since his arrival. He only got a real chance under Rogério Ceni at the end of 2022 due to a series of injuries (see, it’s not a new issue) among players in his position. He performed well enough to start the following year as a starter, but ended up in Reffis right after the second match, a derby against Palmeiras on the synthetic field at Parque Antártica.

Even with the injury, São Paulo finalized the permanent purchase of the player (who had been on loan) from the City Group for 4.3 million euros (approximately R$ 23 million), to be paid in installments over three years.

Somewhat sidelined in 2024, Ferraresi started this year with high expectations. He was a starter under Luis Zubeldía, playing improvised at right-back, and began the new Hernán Crespo era assured among the starting eleven in a three-defender system. However, he ended up being left out in the last rounds of the Brazilian Championship.

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