Paulo Bernardo

He's a * brilliant football player

I wonder who Benfica will gift us with next

 

So far this season, seamless transition from MOR to PB.
Right now, he's ahead of Reo.
And also great to see him slot into Cal's position, as we will need to manage Cal's gametime.
All things positive right now with PB, long may it continue.
Trying not to get too carried away but seeing potential POTY, just seems to be improving every game.

 

Exactly.

We just sold 2 subs for 40M€ (Marcos Leonardo) and 28M€ (David Neres). If we can, in addition, make some extra cash on players that would not have an opportunity coming from the bench, that's good for all.

We have plenty of other young CMs looking for an opportunity in the team right now. And we just sold 19y old CM João Neves for 60M+10M€ to PSG. It may seem a bit ruthless but with the amount of gems we have coming from the youth ranks you either make an impact in 6-18 months (João Neves, Félix, Gonçalo Ramos, Rúben Dias, etc) or, if you fail to make it in that time window, its better for everyone if you move on and we take a % of a future sale.

Paulo Bernardo was earning 1M€+/y and being loaned every year with no path to the main Benfica team. That path is much easier for the 17-19y olds currently at our B team. Paulo has sell-on of 30%. Sell him for 20M€ and the deal works fine for everyone.

 

Bernardo is some player for us. If that’s their model we should be trying to partner with Benfica. Buy all their dross and improve us no end. Sell for a large fee and it’s a win win for both clubs.
.

 

I think he was actually rated higher than Jota

 

Not at the time of his loan out.. Benfica forum has a section on all their youth players and they were relatively content with him leaving.

 

I was actually raging at us not just paying the £6m and getting him in early to settle. Thought haggling was a bit of a risk in case we lost out on him.

So glad we got him signed and for a lower fee was great business in hindsight. Top class operator.

 

Getting him "early to settle"?

* had all last season to settle

 

Well, settle further, get a pre-season in with the manager etc.

 

No offence, but they're not "gifting" us with anything, they're also using us to get the most from their youth system... When we flip him for the inevitable £20-25M they'll pick up another £6M, so they'll have gotten about £10M for a youth player that they'd no pathway to develop further themselves at this moment.

Jesus, imagine how brilliant their youths must be that they're passing off that level of player for the transfers and sell-on, rather than developing for themselves... Someone else said we should form a partnership and honestly that seems more productive than even our City links

 

See the City link, I feel like it has become a bit of a myth. There was a spell where we regularly got players from them but Frimpong 5 years ago was the last player we signed from them. The last high profile loan was Paddy Roberts in Rodgers 17/18 season.

Since the loan rules have changed and Ciry started buying up the likes of Lommel, Girona and Troyes we have not had any players. We did obviously come across Ange likely via that route but he wasn’t our main target.

On Benfica, is it not through some agent/scout we know? You are spot on they were never selling Jota for £13m when we took him on loan, he had flopped at Real Valladolid. Bernardo looks another good player but was nowhere near their team.

The only thing I would say is having watched Benfica vs Rangers last year the first team seems to have lost its way a bit and was reliant on a few older players. Neves was impressive but bar that they looked very ordinary, so something seems to have gone wrong for them there somewhere. Possibly the manger, I don’t know.

 

I think the City links dried up when we signed Ange, although probably unrelated as I can't see why it would have caused problems and you're probably right about the rules, but people still mention that but we've done better from the Benfica route and the relationship seems mutually good all-round. City wanted to use us differently, and were as likely to sell the player out from under us rather than letting us sign them and they'd get the sell-on. Benfica definitely seems to value our pathway to put the shine on the players at a slower development rate

 

Bernardo and Jota should be a huge avenue that we should go down with some transfers.

Youngsters at big clubs who have no route to their starting xi.

Porto, Feyenoord, Ajax, PSV, Sporting, Benfica, AC Milan, Inter etc all have terrific youngsters coming through that go to other teams in their leagues and go on to make a name for themselves. We should be giving them the opportunity.

We need more Jotas and Bernardos. I'm hoping we have a relationship with Benfica that we can work in partnership here and the youngsters know they'll do well here after successes with Jota and Bernardo.

 

At the end of the day the Benfica route is two players, what they probably like is they have loaned us players and got sales from those loans rather than the player back and having to find another buyer for them.

Also we are in a position to buy the player when loaning to a number of other Portuguese teams out of the big 3, Braga and Famalicao most don’t spend much on players.

All in as @Luz1904 said this is fairly small stuff for Benfica so I doubt they view it as having partnership with us. We are just a club willing to buy their players and have the resources to do so.

 

Oh, no! I'm not suggesting we have any formal relationship with them, or that we've set this up as a system, but what I mean is that our models for development appear symbiotically compatible and advantageous... And that feeling spreads behind the scenes, and makes it easier for us to continue it going forward both with the club and the players who see it as a genuine avenue... There's no way either of us is interested in a formal feeder situation, we're both too big for that...

 

I am obviously biased but our Benfica forum (serbenfiquista.com) is arguably the best club forum in the world IMO. Every B team player has his own thread. Every woman senior player has her own thread. Threads of 50 pages for a random kid. Love it.

You are correct that Paulo Bernardo was out of favour but I would say that albeit Paulo was not as hyped as Jota during his youth career the hype that Jota and Paulo Bernardo had at the time each one was playing for our B team was quite similar. Paulo Bernardo was being compared to Rui Costa and managed to get a great contract deal. Unfortunately the step up to the main squad is not always easy.

I made a reference to Paulo Bernardo in Jota's thread before Paulo was linked to Celtic. When Paulo Bernardo was the main man at Benfica B.

 

Martim Neto (CM) and Tiago Gouveia (W) are the obvious shouts. I mentioned Tiago so many times here that I should be getting a fee if the deal eventually happens. But he would not be as cheap as Paulo Bernardo.

This type of deals works for the clubs but for the players as well. Much better to your average Benfica youth player to play for a big club that is expected to dominate games, have possession and attack than play in a smaller club with 40% possession each game. I would say that Celtic is now much more attractive to our youth players than when Jota first signed. I can see it becoming a recurring thing every couple of years.