Chelsea star could have joined Benfica, says Brazilian director | OneFootball

José Boto revealed that it is increasingly difficult for Portuguese clubs to buy in Brazil, and that if it were 10 years ago, Estêvão – who recently shone in the Premier League – could have signed for Benfica. The former head of scouting for the Eagles is currently the sporting director at Flamengo, and he gave an interview to Record newspaper, where he spoke about the changes that have intensified in recent years.

"Portugal is one of the pioneers in this type of scouting and I am perfectly comfortable talking about it, since in 2007 we started the scouting service at Benfica. But that’s not all that happened. The European clubs that used to buy players from Benfica began to realize they had to come here, directly to the source. They started coming to Brazil and signing these young players," José Boto began to explain.

The Flamengo sporting director continued: "Perhaps today Benfica, FC Porto, and Sporting no longer have the possibility of bringing in those players they used to between 2007 and 2015. They were easy to bring in and then 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 come and get a player of that level."

"If it were about 10 years ago, maybe Estêvão would have gone to Benfica instead of going to Chelsea. This has made life harder for Portuguese clubs, although they know how to reinvent themselves and always look for other markets with a lot of sense. Flamengo is a bit different because we look to bring in players with a bit more of a name and already with a résumé, which makes the fans a bit more reassured. It’s not easy to change this mentality, this culture, and we have to adapt to it, to the place where we work. It’s not easy to do at Flamengo what is done at Benfica or FC Porto, because here that culture doesn’t exist," the former Benfica man explained next.

José Boto concluded as follows: "Not only here, but also at other clubs that might have a greater need to do this work because they don’t have the financial resources that Flamengo has. But that ends up not happening, because they prefer to bring in those who Brazilians call ‘medalhões’ (big names), sometimes at very high costs for the reality of those clubs, instead of doing more scouting work. There are many good players in Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, and they could even compete with European clubs by bringing these players in first. Flamengo, due to its size and financial resources, doesn’t need this work as much, but it’s something we do here, with players who are not well known and who have the possibility of becoming known at Flamengo and not at other clubs."

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