Under Ronald Koeman, Southampton built up their scouting presence in Portuguese football.
Koeman had Southampton scouts regularly watching top Portuguese clubs, such as Sporting and Porto, but Benfica were regularly on the list too.
The former Southampton manager is also a former manager at Benfica, and so he knows the club and Portuguese football well. Sending officials to matches in the country quickly resulted in Southampton buying Cedric Soares from Sporting for a bargain fee of around £5m.
Everton have followed Portuguese matches for some time, so under Koeman that’s only likely to be ramped up.
Portuguese newspaper A Bola report on Tuesday that Everton had a spy at the match between Benfica and SC Braga on Monday night, it’s one of the higher standard games to be seen in Portuguese football.
Benfica won the match 3-1 with Konstantinos Mitroglou, who failed to settle at Fulham, scoring two goals and widely seen as the Man of the Match.
Nineteen year old winger Gonçalo Guedes is attracting interest from England, and he had a good game, as did 21 year old former Barcelona left back Álex Grimaldo.
Interestingly, Southampton don’t seem to be quite so prevalent in Portugal so far this season. That could change, and it would be a surprise if they scaled back their Portuguese scouting, having struck gold with Cedric.
