Russian club aide on Yuri Alberto's Europe return, praises Filho do Terrão | OneFootball

The European football transfer window for the 2026/2027 season will open in mid-July and is usually a busy one, as clubs open their wallets to build squads capable of competing for the biggest titles. In recent years, one of the Brazil-based players most targeted has been Corinthians striker Yuri Alberto.

William Oliveira, assistant coach at Zenit, Russia, where Yuri Alberto played in the first six months of 2022, gave an interview to Fala Fonte, on ESPN Brasil, praised the Alvinegro center-forward, and also recalled his time with the Russian side. There, he scored six goals and provided three assists in 15 matches. He returned to Brazil shortly afterward because of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, as FIFA allowed the contracts of players active in those two countries at that time to be suspended.

Photo: Rodrigo Coca/Agência Corinthians

“Yuri? As a player, he fills a position everyone needs. We know him well, and he would have all the quality needed to come back and maybe continue his story here. When the conflict began, he decided to return to Brazil and wait to see what would happen. His desire was to play in the Champions League. He was the only player who wanted to return to Brazil. The club spoke with Corinthians, and that’s when negotiations with Brazilian teams began. We worked out a deal, made concessions, kept 50%, and finalized it with other players,” he said.

Yuri Alberto joined Corinthians in July 2022, initially on loan from the Russian club. At the start of 2023, the club from Parque São Jorge completed his permanent signing and sent goalkeeper Ivan, center-back Robert Renan, midfielder Du Queiroz, and forward Gustavo Mantuan in exchange, in addition to granting purchase priority for young striker Pedro, who was 17 at the time. Timão kept 50% of his economic rights, while Zenit retained the other half.

A product of Santos’ youth academy, Yuri Alberto left the Baixada Santista on a free transfer in mid-2020 to join Internacional. He stayed in the South until the end of the 2021 season. In January 2022, he was bought by Zenit for 25 million euros (approximately R$ 150 million at the time).

Wearing the Corinthians shirt, Yuri Alberto has 82 goals and 25 assists in 236 matches (202 as a starter), with 105 wins, 61 draws, and 70 losses — a 53.11% points rate. He is the club’s top scorer of the 21st century and the all-time leading scorer at Neo Química Arena, opened in 2014, with 51 goals. His contract with Timão runs until mid-2030.

In terms of numbers, the best year of his career came in 2024, when he was the top scorer in Brazilian football with 31 goals — 15 of them in the Brasileirão — finishing as the league’s top scorer alongside Alerrandro, then at Vitória, and playing a key role in the team’s surge in the national competition that year (from the relegation zone to the Libertadores preliminary rounds). The No. 9 was also decisive in the titles won in the Campeonato Paulista (2025), Copa do Brasil (2025), and Supercopa do Brasil (2026), against Palmeiras, Vasco da Gama, and Flamengo, scoring goals in all three finals.

Another Terrão graduate was also mentioned

William Oliveira also highlighted Pedro’s potential. He made his Corinthians first-team debut in March 2023 after establishing himself as one of the club’s brightest academy prospects. At youth level, his main titles were the U-17 state championship in 2021 and 2023, against Palmeiras and São Paulo, respectively. For the senior team, however, he did not get much continuity, scoring just one goal in 22 matches (nine as a starter). With the Russian side since midway through the 2023/2024 season, he has 11 goals and 10 assists in 84 matches, according to the website Ogol.

“He’s a kid with insane quality; I believe you’ll be hearing a lot about him in world football. It’s a matter for the board, and we know about his desire to maybe seek a new horizon. The board knows and is managing it,” he commented.

Under the administration of former president Duílio Monteiro Alves, Corinthians sold the winger for nine million euros (R$ 47 million at the exchange rate at the time) for 50% of his economic rights, while initially keeping 30%. However, in the first year of Augusto Melo’s administration, Timão, without any official announcement, handed over the share it still held in the player as payment for a debt it owed to Elenko Sports, the agency that manages the player’s career.

The matter only came to light in mid-2025, when Al-Ittihad of Saudi Arabia showed interest in buying the player and Alvinegro would have missed out on a considerable amount if the transfer had gone through. Currently, Corinthians is entitled to only 2.5% of the value of any future deal involving Pedro. That amount refers to FIFA’s Solidarity Mechanism.

At Zenit, Pedro has already won two Russian league titles (2023/2024 and 2025/2026), one Russian Cup (2023/2024), and one Russian Super Cup (2024).

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