clubs doing shady deals with agents

This happens in Brazil too.

not to mention academy players are treated like shit here, kids debuting professionally when they’re 21/22 y.o. how the fuck are we supposed to compete when we don’t give them time to get experience from early on?

Here in Brazil, if you’re a young player at the big clubs and you haven’t made your professional debut until you’re 21/22 years old, the chances of you succeeding are extremely low.

Players with the biggest potential (especially attacking players) will debut before they are 18. Defensive players start a little later.

Talking about Atlético Mineiro, for example… The club’s board is under a lot of pressure to give more space to youngsters. It’s part of the country’s football culture.

Católica, who used to have a lot of promising academy players making it to the national team and Europe, is wasting so many players to make way for old, washed dudes.

I checked out Catolica’s squad on Transfermarkt and saw Franco Di Santo there… Holy fuck, one of the worst strikers I’ve seen playing for Atlético Mineiro.

I’m 100% sure there’s a young Chilean better than him.

I’m not Chilean, (i’m Brazilian) but the decline in the quality of Chilean football over the last decade is terrifying. Even in the Libertadores, it’s very noticeable.

In the past, playing against Colo Colo, Universidad Catolica and Universidad de Chile was hell. I remember Atlético Mineiro losing to Colo Colo in 2015 in the Libertadores. Today? Well…

Today the Chilean league is certainly behind Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, Ecuador and even Paraguay. (I haven’t mentioned Uruguay because it’s unfair. It’s a country with 3.5 million habitants, and the fact that they’re a football powerhouse is fascinating)… And we’re talking about the league of one of South America’s most developed countries.

And we look at the new generation of Chilean football, and there’s not much prospect of improvement in the short term. If we compare it with Ecuador, for example, they’re producing youngster after youngster with good potential.

In the case of Ecuadorian football, all it took was for one team to focus on developing youngsters (Del Valle), and that boosted the whole ecosystem in the country. I remember starting to hear about Del Valle in 2014/2015 as a project to develop young talent… Today, if you look at their infrastructure, it’s better than even some big Brazilian clubs that have budgets, I don’t know, 10x bigger.

Campeonato Paulista is difficult, but there was a time (I don’t know if it’s changed) when the rules were crazy and could cause some distortions in the perception of teams’ strength.

Yes, the difference between Leipzig and Bragantino is that Bragantino had some history in Brazilian football before Red Bull.

Bragantino had already won 1 Série B title in 1989, 1 Campeonato Paulista title in 1990 and was runner-up in the Brasileirão in 1991.

This reduces the feeling of an artificial team.

Fun fact to foreigners: Red Bull tried to create a team from scratch in Brazil called Red Bull Brasil. It didn’t make it out of the bottom divisions hahaha. Brazilian football is ruthless.

Arsenal’s case is significantly less worse than Botafogo’s.

Arsenal were being chased by City, who are a Premier League points machine. So Arsenal’s margin for error was 0.

Botafogo is losing a championship that “nobody” wants to win. Everyone who is in contention for the title has had their crisis and gone a few rounds without a win. One example is Atlético Mineiro, who are 5 points behind Botafogo and have gone 10 games without a win in one part of the league.

Palmeiras also went four games without a win after being eliminated from the Libertadores. Flamengo were a mess under Sampaoli…

So yeah…

My guy…

Atlético Mineiro lost to Cruzeiro, Vasco and Coritiba at home. And drew twice with América Mineiro (once after taking a 2-0 lead).

My sanity is gone.

Just CLOSE this club… It’s not even selling, it’s CLOSING DOWN ACTIVITIES.

Botafogo, Grêmio and Palmeiras with 59 points. Bragantino with 58, Flamengo with 56 and Atlético Mineiro with 54.

There are five games to go (Flamengo and Botafogo have a game in hand).

Botafogo is the ULTIMATE bottler. Nobody even comes close.

I’d like to see André in Casemiro’s place.

It was also refreshing to see a right-back (Yan Couto) able to provide offensive support.