Only on Portuguese TV. See previous page.
Cheers, Charley
Sounds like we might struggle to get this up; stupid full-international qualifiers, we want to see Bebe!!!
Only on Portuguese TV. See previous page.
I'm quite shocked that he has been written off by so many of the Journalist, anyone who denies that there is an element of ABU-ism in the English Media, can only look at this situation. I desperately want him to deliver a good performance at the U21 Match, so that some of the Journos look stupid at-least for the time being.
BTW On a unrelated note, Ian Ladyman of Dailymail is one of the journos who has been banned by Fergie for his attack on Bebe.
Again, it's not ABU it's just lazy journalism. The same Mirror article also writes off David Silva as being unable to adapt to the physicality of the EPL - after 2 or 3 matches. Hernandez was in their top 3 signings, he's not scored a single goal in the league yet. The whole piece was crap, but not ABU.
Again, it's not ABU it's just lazy journalism. The same Mirror article also writes off David Silva as being unable to adapt to the physicality of the EPL - after 2 or 3 matches. Hernandez was in their top 3 signings, he's not scored a single goal in the league yet. The whole piece was crap, but not ABU.
I'm not just talking about that article though. DailyMail, Guardian, Mirror all have attacked the signing of Bebe.
Well yeah, because we spent £7m odd on a player that was being hawked out at 125k in January and was on a free in the summer. £7m on a player who's never played competitively above the Portuguese 3rd division, who SAF has never seen play and who nobody had heard of prior to a newspaper article linking him with Real. £7m on a player who's agent changed a week or so before this sudden move, a player who, let's be honest, faces a massive mental and physical battle to make the step up from playing on the streets at 17/18 to training with some of the best players in the world at 20.
Don't get me wrong, people writing him off are being ridiculously premature, but people pointing out that it's a very very strange transfer are absolutely right, and in all honesty if I was a sports journalist I'd be all over it.
Well yeah, because we spent £7m odd on a player that was being hawked out at 125k in January and was on a free in the summer. £7m on a player who's never played competitively above the Portuguese 3rd division, who SAF has never seen play and who nobody had heard of prior to a newspaper article linking him with Real. £7m on a player who's agent changed a week or so before this sudden move, a player who, let's be honest, faces a massive mental and physical battle to make the step up from playing on the streets at 17/18 to training with some of the best players in the world at 20.
Don't get me wrong, people writing him off are being ridiculously premature, but people pointing out that it's a very very strange transfer are absolutely right, and in all honesty if I was a sports journalist I'd be all over it.
No matter how big our scouting net is, it cant cover all divisions in every league. Bebe was playing at 3rd division level before he signed with Vitoria. Its only natural that United didn't knew about him back then.
That's fine, but the speed and ease with which we spent £7m was bizarre. Apologies for harking back to it, but we pulled out of the Ljajic deal because after monitoring him closely (training with us, playing in Serbia) we decided he wasn't worth pursuing. Fair enough.
But to then spend £7.4m (apparently) on a player that none of our scouts have really had time to judge just seems like madness. Regardless of the fact that he was available for free a few months ago.
Did we actually spent 7.4m on him? I doubt it. Just because he had a 7.4m minimum clause bid that doesn't mean that we have spent that much on him. I do agree with the Ljajic part though. The way we pulled the plug to it was strange to say the least.
What a difference two weeks make – at least in football. A fortnight ago, Bebe’s exclusion from a reserves match was used by the media to question the Portuguese player’s ability. Since then, Bebe received his first call-up to the Portuguese U-21 National team silencing a few of those critics in the process.
Reports have now filtered out from Portugal that the young forward impressed during his first training session on Monday by scoring a hat-trick. Apparently, the third goal was an impressive bit of spontaneous skill which had Bebe’s team mates applauding the player’s imagination and ability.
With his back to goal and still sat on the ground after a challenge, Bebe received the ball, dinked the ball up with his right foot and then hooked it into the far post drawing applause from his team mates.
Cheers, Charley
Sounds like we might struggle to get this up; stupid full-international qualifiers, we want to see Bebe!!!
A 'tough upbringing' can often mean that their family were really poor. But they still had a family, a family which loved them. Being abandoned by your mother as a child is a pretty tough thing for any human being to get over.
Well yeah, because we spent £7m odd on a player that was being hawked out at 125k in January and was on a free in the summer. £7m on a player who's never played competitively above the Portuguese 3rd division, who SAF has never seen play and who nobody had heard of prior to a newspaper article linking him with Real. £7m on a player who's agent changed a week or so before this sudden move, a player who, let's be honest, faces a massive mental and physical battle to make the step up from playing on the streets at 17/18 to training with some of the best players in the world at 20.
Don't get me wrong, people writing him off are being ridiculously premature, but people pointing out that it's a very very strange transfer are absolutely right, and in all honesty if I was a sports journalist I'd be all over it.
That's fine, but the speed and ease with which we spent £7.4m was bizarre. Apologies for harking back to it, but we pulled out of the Ljajic deal because after monitoring him closely (training with us, playing in Serbia) we decided he wasn't worth pursuing. Fair enough. He'd been called up to their national team, looked to many to be very promising and was highly rated - but our scouts/coaches decided he wasn't good enough so pulled the plug.
Fine.
But to then spend £7.4m (apparently) on a player that none of our scouts have really had time to judge, who's never played against top class opposition, has never been selected for his national side etc. just seems absolutely baffling. Regardless of the fact that he was available for free a few months ago.
The official line on Ljajic ended up being that we bailed because we couldn't get a permit. The subsequent spending on Smalling, Hernandez and Bebe makes that seem a bit more plausible.
Speaking of plausible, all the conspiracy theories about money-laundering or doing Queroz a favour are the exact opposite.
your a 98 in WGAF 11..grow up
Maybe just maybe united weren't lying about the work permit issue and didn't want to spend that amount on a player they'd have to loan out for a year or two. See carlos vela. Strikes me the answer given was probably the true one even if everyone was desperately searching for conspiracies.
The work permit thing is a bit awkward. If we could get a work permit for Diouf who had just 1 cap with Senegal, we could have easily got a work permit for Ljajic who was fresh from a fantastic Euro U17 and was already considered as one of the most promised kids around. Considering that there where two official versions I am more prone to believe that the Ljajic deal came at a time when we were a bit short of cashflow(due to bonds etc). It happens in all businesses
I think it's a money laundering scam.
It's to do with age. What 18 year olds can you name who've got permits on the special talent rule, because I can't think of any. Vela was man of the tournament at the u-17 world cup but still had to go on loan for two years before getting one.
They did came out with two official versions though.
Bit of both maybe?
Or none of them?
Well what else would it be given that we spent more on smalling instead?
For once, I'm in full agreement with devilish.
Which is weird on two levels, the second being my inherent distaste for anything even remotely resembling a conspiracy theory.
The right deal at the wrong time. It does happen with big companies. The company has the assets and is in a decent financial shape and yet, for a period of time it runs out of cash flow. Under such circumstances the managers tend to cut unnecessary investment until cash start pouring in and the wheel start turning again.Im not a financial expert but if Im not wrong we where discussing the bond deal during the Ljajic deal. That's quite a big decision to take which was bound to influence our strategy in either one way or another.
We knew about Ljajic for a year. I doubt that the management was naive enough not to assess the situation beforehand and see whether there is a realistic chance in signing him. We didn't even had a valid excuse to come out with. In fact we changed it in less then 24 hours.
Except we know for a fact that we had more than £100m in the bank at that time which was largely still there six months later, so thr cashflow argument doesn't stack up. Also, didn't we sign smalling in the same window (apologies if I'm mistaken on that).
I just don't get the need to find conspiracies everywhere.
Except we know for a fact that we had more than £100m in the bank at that time which was largely still there six months later, so thr cashflow argument doesn't stack up. Also, didn't we sign smalling in the same window (apologies if I'm mistaken on that).
I just don't get the need to find conspiracies everywhere.