Earlier today, we covered the reaction from the Portuguese press to Wolverhampton’s game against Manchester City.
The praise for manager Nuno Espírito Santo was so excited that they had almost an entire page for the match report, giving little room for other clubs like Manchester United or Arsenal.
We thought that was big, but still nothing compared to what Chilean newspaper El Mercurio did for Claudio Bravo.
The Manchester City goalkeeper not only had the frontpage of the sports section only for him, but also got an opening two-page story about his great performance in the penalty shootout, which qualified Pep Guardiola’s side for the League Cup quarterfinals.
El Grafico recalls that from six penalty shootouts Bravo was involved in, he’s won five of them, having made ten saves in total. There’s even a graphic for each one of these matches showing the shots he saved.
The newspaper also takes the quotes from Pep Guardiola, and all the praises made by the English media to show how the goalkeeper has been highlighted by the local papers.
The story is interesting because Manchester City’s Bravo is often in a public war with the Chilean media, and all that attention makes it look like the country still loves him.
Alexis Sanchez, who is undoubtely Chile’s current biggest star righ, also qualified with Arsenal for the quarter-finals. But all he got was a short paragraph in the middle of Bravo’s story. The striker is not getting all the attention this time.