Championship sides Aston Villa and Reading both made a scouting trip to Portugal at the weekend.
As reported by newspaper A Bola today, both clubs sent emissaries to watch the local league match between Moreirense and Rio Ave.
With the home side trying to avoid relegation and the away team fighting for a spot in the Europa League, it was a pretty interesting game to watch, with Moreirense managing to win Rio Ave 2-1.
It’s not rare, but still uncommon to see a Championship club scouting a minor game from the Portuguese league. Now to see two Championship sides witnessing the same match, that’s very interesting.
A Bola doesn’t point out which players Aston Villa and Reading where especially watching, so we can only highlight the guys who had a good performance in the match.
For the home side, goalkeeper Jonathan and advanced midfielder Rafael Costa both had a great performance, but it was really Ronaldo Peña who was the man of the match for scoring the winner in the second half.
Unsurprisingly, the Rio Ave players who kept them trying to seek the result were the known club stars. Left-back Yuri Ribeiro, midfielder Francisco Geraldes and striker Guedes. The latter was the one who scored their goal in the first half.
Clubs such as Southampton, Genoa, Lyon, Montpellier, Caen, Estrasburg, Clermont-Foot, Sevilla, Sporting Gijón, Deportivo La Coruña, Genk and Videoton all had scouts watching this match as well.
