19 - Vitor Rawke

mc_lovin said:

He was brilliant getting into shooting positions. Also lethal in 1v1 dribblings near the box. That's not just movement and technique.

Remember a few scenes where he literally floated past players like Iniesta (who had an insane acceleration).

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His pace used to be discussed a lot and often made out to be too slow to be elite wide player but that was over played.

For a wide player he was nowhere near the quickest see in that position.

JamDav1982 said:

His pace used to be discussed a lot and often made out to be too slow to be elite wide player but that was over played.

For a wide player he was nowhere near the quickest see in that position.

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Over long yards he wasn't quick but he could go past his man in the first 5-10 meters with a quick acceleration.

te amo barca said:

Over long yards he wasn't quick but he could go past his man in the first 5-10 meters with a quick acceleration.

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His acceleration was decent. Far from elite.

Just scored today .

Porque said:

If we want to focus on low cost gambles then best ignore Brazil and to an extent Argentina, and target the other South American nations like Uruguay of Araujo and Ecuador/others as Brighton.

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Yes, I've said this before. Uruguay for strikers and CBs and Ecuador for midfielders and CBs as well. Well, we don't really need a CB urgently for the first team anymore so could take an easy gamble for Barca B with one of those less expensive kids and who knows maybe we can get another Araujo.

One thing to mention though, it was reported in Sport or MD (don't know where) a week or so ago that we have send one of our scouts to Copa Sudamericano U20 and after looking at that guy (Jose Manuel Barla) he was previously a scout for his hometown team Cadiz (where he also spend almost his all playing career) and also as (assistant) manager for Real Jaen. Who knows, maybe he's good at his job and I'm unfair to him but just looks to me like our scouts in general lack in experience working for clubs on at least somewhere near the level we should be.

Another thing said in that article was that City send 5 of their scouts to South America and we know they've signed a lot of players for cheap from there in last few years. Not sure how many of them will really make it but if nothing else can sell them for overall profit and reinvest that money into more youngsters. And if you hit with one player like Julian Alvarez (who looks like a big success so far although his career can still go downwards) then you don't really mind if you miss on 5 or 10 others. Not when you can afford that like City clearly can. I know we can't really compete with them financially but could still learn some things from them and maybe we'd get more Araujos and less Gustavo Maias.

Are we following this kid for example?

https://twitter.com/FootballReprt/status/1621625537411031042

I know one great goal doesn't make him a great talent as everyone can score occasional bangers. But he's also a joint second best scorer of the competition after Vitor Roque. Don't know enough about either of them to compare but I'm sure he would be a lot cheaper. Probably like 20m or 30m cheaper. Which doesn't mean we shouldn't sign Roque if we truly believe in him but maybe at the same time can also take a flier on this Uruguayan kid as well.

But we shouldn't really compare him to Roque (who ofc needs to be in our focus if we plan to spend 30m on him) but rather how he is compared to Lucas Roman (who I kind of like based on his highlights) who we've just signed. They are probably in a similar price range but how much did we know about each of them before deciding to sign the Argentinian rather than the Uruguayan. Better infos you have on the player more likely you are to evaluate him better but ofc you can still make wrong decisions. It happens all the time to all clubs, not just Barca.



After South America we have Asia. Japan and South Korea especially have both produced some quality technical players with good attitude and work ethic as well. Definitely worth folllowing but how extensively are we doing that?

Africa is another continent worth scouting more imo. Right now there is CHAN (African Nations Championship - not to be confused with more known Africa Cup of Nations) going on that most people probably don't even know about. Only players from domestic leagues play in this competition. You never know when/where you can get some hidden gem but I wonder if our scouts are even aware of this competition and if other big clubs have send their people to Algeria. But can be sure that scouts from developing/selling clubs like Salzburg, Ajax and many others probably already have some of those players on their radars. Pretty sure most of these players will never make it to Europe (or at least make it to a high enough level for average people to hear about them) but if you're "lucky" you can find the next Mane or Koulibaly from Senegal before other clubs. I know they've both started their career in France (like most of players playing for good African NTs who have never actually played in their domestic leagues) so probably not the best example but you get my point.

Luciano numbers with his club is underwhelming tbf, scoring just 2 goals in 28 games (over 1500 minutes) in top league. He scored 5 in 18 games (1500 minutes) in 2nd division team with his previous club.
I am sure Barcelona knows about him, as we follow Uruguay market (we signed Bueno, Araujo, and had interest in others) and we also clearly follow many smaller markets in football.
What we fail at times is at the top of the chain, as scouts aren't decision makers.

khaled_a_d said:

Luciano numbers with his club is underwhelming tbf, scoring just 2 goals in 28 games (over 1500 minutes) in top league. He scored 5 in 18 games (1500 minutes) in 2nd division team with his previous club.
I am sure Barcelona knows about him, as we follow Uruguay market (we signed Bueno, Araujo, and had interest in others) and we also clearly follow many smaller markets in football.
What we fail at times is at the top of the chain, as scouts aren't decision makers.

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That's true. I don't think our scouting is as bad as people here make it out to be but can ofc always improve.

Point of my previous post is not that much knowing a certain player (like this Luciano for example) exists but finding out enough about him so Sporting department/decision makers in your club can make as accurate decision on him as they can. Combined with the use of (advanced) stats that are also becoming more and more important in modern football but (at least imo) won't be able to fully replace a good old fashioned scouting.

If I use FM analogy, clubs can have 200 or more players on their list but only like 10 or 20 of them are (close to) fully scouted (and yes, I know this is a lot easier to do in a game than in real life) so you know as much as possible not only about their profile and potential fit for your system but also about their positive and negative traits. You can usually find out pretty soon if a player is very fast or strong, a good dribbler or passer etc. but you need more time to discover mental part of his game. Which in the end is usually what makes a difference between average and good or good and great players. If you have two youngsters with similar physical and tehnical abilities but one of them is determined and hard working while other is lazy and focus more on social media than football then you don't have to be Einstein to figure out which of them is more likely to make it.

Then it's consistency which is hard to judge with young players who are expected to be inconsistent. If a player has a great game you still don't know if he can play on a that level constantly. You can just be "lucky" to scout him the right game. So you need to watch him more. Or OTOH if he plays bad do you still keep him on your list or write him off and risk another club who has watched him more will eventually sign him and he'll turn out great for them.

That's where I think a difference is between Barca sending one of our scouts to South America and City having five of their people there. Not only they get a wider/more extensive search for all potential players but they can also learn more about each individual better. Different scouts can watch the same game/team and exchange their opinions about certain player(s) they like.

I know nowadays most games are filmed so you don't actually need to watch them live (or you can re-watch to confirm your initial observation on the player or see if there is anything you've missed out) but experienced scouting eye can still see more watching players in person. For example their movement off the ball is not always caught up on the camera but it's becoming more and more important.

And maybe scouts can also see some players they're especially interested in in trainings. If a player looks good in games but uninterested in trainings (although games in that competition are played every two days so I think not really time for anything more than regeneration trainings) you should try to get an answer why is that. Maybe speak a word or two with youth coaches to find out more about players personality etc. A lot of work that five scouts can obviously do much better than a single man. It doesn't mean that one player we'll decide to sign can't turn out better than all 5 players City will buy but in theory they have better chances to succeed.

serghei said:

Badly need to find a Salah, Mane, type of transfer that clicks great. Ferran is a bust, and raphinha not quite a good fit even if he ups his level. Sooner or later, raphinha is gonna be sold. It's just a matter of being patient, letting him find better form, then choosing the right offer to maybe even break even or gain a bit of profit, like Sanchez case for me.

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Sadly we missed out massively on Julian Alvarez. Another sign of our club's sheer incompetence and favoritism towards average spanish players.

I am sold on him. Hope we can scratch together the money. He looks competitive and gritty as hell, I don't think you ever regret signing a player like that (even if they don't get on a world-class level). Also knows how to use his body.

Sandro Ramirez type of player.

Hope so they don't pay more then 15mil for him.

He looks like a smaller Adriano a bit the way he he runs and how early/hard he seems to hit the ball at times.

His face has a swipe of him as well.. or maybe thats main reason think he plays like him.

Fuck knows but looks a player on highlights.

Today is last day in the U-20 competition.
Uruguay vs Brazil. Uruguay has 2 points advantage so only a win makes Brazil champions while a draw is enough for Uruguay.
Roque and Andrey failed to score in last couple of games.

Serious talent.

Romano saying price gone up to 60m now with all the interest.

Wont be seeing him at Barca if that is true.

Paranaense trying to create a bidding war. Is normal.

The one we should have got from that team was Andrey. Shame we didn't move up from 7m a year ago considering the money spent on Ferran the same window.