In the past few days, the Brazilian media published a couple of reports saying Arsenal are interested in signing Athletico Paranaense starlet Vitor Roque.
It was first claimed that it’s Edu Gaspar himself who’s working on that pursuit, and then said the first contacts for the transfer have already been made.
Vitor Roque is one of the most promising talents in Brazil, with not only Arsenal interested in him, and his future has now been discussed by his agent.
André Cury was interviewed by Globo Esporte, and had a lot to say about the striker’s potential, especially regarding the European interest in him.
“Vitor Roque is a boy that we started working with on this project five years ago,” Cury told Globo Esporte.
“At this level of power, appearing in Brazil and abroad, in South America, he has achieved this by demonstrating that he has all the physical, mental and technical characteristics to be playing for a big club in Europe.
“He and Yuri Alberto are two players who work a lot physically and contribute a lot to the team and are modern players, things that are in short supply. The big nines in Europe are of advanced age, like Benzema, Cavani, Lewandowski, and it will open that gap for these players. These two boys from Brazil, Yuri Alberto and Vitor Roque, are going to have a great future in Europe, mainly because of their hard work and strong mentality.”
“We will even have happiness in the national team in the future. Gabriel Martinelli was the one I helped put in Arsenal, he was my indication, he is also strong mentally, physically. In this change of football, these athletes will stand out.”
André Cury also revealed that a €25m bid for Vitor Roque has already been turned down by Athletico. He didn’t say where that came from, despite claiming there have been offers from English clubs already.
“There’ve been proposals, but that was refused. There was an English club, I don’t want to mention names, a Spanish club that already made an offer, an Italian one. In Brazil, we talk about a proposal when it’s on paper. When talking at high-level clubs, we already talk about numbers with no papers, we already refuse an offer when they say ‘can you pay x?’
“No, this is not accepted, it has to be three times that amount. Everything is more modern, faster. We got more or less a value of €25m, and we immediately turned it down, because I understand that the player has a higher value than that, even because some players were sold in Brazil for €20m.”
The agent, who used to work for Barcelona, also mentioned the work of Edu Gaspar at Arsenal in another part of the interview.
“That, for me, was an honour, a unique experience. Obviously to have this process in Barcelona I also left some things. But that’s history, a Brazilian who has been working at the best club in the world for a long time. Now, Edu Gaspar is at Arsenal, we already have Brazilians working at other clubs. It also opened doors for other Brazilian directors.”
