Every time we see that Bournemouth, Crystal Palace or Newcastle United scout a game in Portugal, we point out how frequently they’ve been doing this in the past couple of years.
Now it turns out that the three of them all sent emissaries to watch the Portuguese northern derby between Porto and Braga at the weekend.
Porto needed a win to keep close to Benfica, who are top of the league table. But Braga surprised them with a 1-2 score, even though they still look for a Europa League spot.
The away side opened the scoring with Fransérgio, and although Tiquinho Soares found an equaliser for the Dragons, Paulinho scored Braga’s winner.
All three of them are Brazilians.
Newspaper A Bola, who reports the scouts visiting from Bournemouth, Crystal Palace and Newcastle, doesn’t seem to have a clue about who the Premier League clubs were watching.Braga had two players who stood out in their heroic win: defensive midfielder Palhinha and striker Paulinho. Given the similarity in their names, let’s just hope the scouts haven’t made any mistakes when taking their notes.
Ricardo Horta, who’s recently been linked to Newcastle United, was only used in the second half, and was praised for adding ‘combativeness and creativity’ to Braga’s attacking sector.
