Brentford summer signing Gustavo Nunes is an example of a growing trend of Brazilian footballers moving to Europe early, before anyone in their own country loves them.
That’s according to A Bola, who cover the situation and how Nunes may be a future player who Brazilian fans will know nothing about.
He joined Brentford in a €12m deal from Gremio in the summer, a surprise move given he had managed just 40 appearances for the Brazilian’s first team after stepping up from the youth set up.
This is a growing trend, according to A Bola, who say that Brazilian fans have ‘lost their emotional connection’ with most of the players on the Brazilian national team.
They already confuse the current stars, according to the newspaper, and that’s only likely to get worse in the future.
The reason for this is that Brazilian players are moving to Europe earlier and earlier, with Nunes’ the move the latest. He’s joined a list of the likes of Endrin, Estêvão and Pedro Lima to move to Europe before they’re even really established in their home country.
In the past, players like Romário, Rivaldo, Ronaldinho, and Kaká were all older and established stars, even icons, at their clubs before they made their moves.
This new trend, according to Thiago Freitas, the COO of Roc Nations Sports in Brazil, an agency who manage a lot of the players, is because European clubs want to develop the players themselves.
“Europeans today negotiate with athletes before they are 18 to integrate them into their structures as soon as they reach the legal age because football in South America is still far below that of Europe in terms of training and demands,” he said.
“And for an elite player, limiting his development to the South American scenario is no longer advantageous.”
This stops players from developing relationship and status at home, according to Fábio Wolff, a sports marketing specialist and managing partner at Wolff Sports.
“This phenomenon of increasingly early transfers prevents athletes from achieving idol status and full recognition from fans in their home countries…” he added.
In other words, in a year or two, the average Brazilian fan may be asking “who is this Gustavo Nunes guy?”, with his move to Brentford seemingly meaning everyone in his homeland will soon know nothing about him.
