Manchester City will reportedly have scouts at tonight’s Copa do Brasil match between Grêmio and Flamengo.
According to local outlet Esporte Interativo, an official has been sent to Porto Alegre to keep an eye on the Grêmio forward Everton.
The scout would also take the chance to watch the Flamengo midfielder Lucas Paquetá, who has been recently linked to the club.
As these are currently two of the best clubs in Brazil, national team manager Tite will also be present at the Arena do Grêmio.
After Esporte Interativo reported it, outlet UOL managed to confirm the information. However, they claim that the scouting is a ‘routine’ and the City staff deny that they will watch a specific player.
Everton has been linked to Manchester City since 2013. The forward has been impressing for Grêmio in the past couple of years, but despite the constant rumours, we’ve never seen stories about advanced talks between the clubs.
Regarding Lucas Paquetá, there have been rumours this summer that City would be ready to spend £40m on the player. Then Liverpool were also dragged in.
This week, Paulo Vinicius Coelho, who’s one of the most reliable journalists in Brazil, claimed that the player has been receiving approaches from England. He wrote that ‘it was said’ before the World Cup that Manchester City could made an attempt, but so far, no official offers have been made.
If we could bet on this, we’d say that Lucas Paquetá is a much more likely signing for City. It’s been only an year since he’s become a regular for Flamengo’s first team and the talent he’s been showing on a senior level is superb.
His creative style is exactly what we’ve seen Guardiola demanding from midfielders for so many years, and at the age of 20, there’s still a lot of room to grow.
