Nottingham Forest, Brentford and Ipswich Town all sent scouts to watch Porto against Manchester City this week.
That gave the three English clubs a very useful chance to look at the Portuguese champions against strong Premier League opposition.
A Bola says they were among 18 foreign clubs represented at the Dragão. Manchester United and Everton also had people there.
The newspaper doesn’t say who Forest, Brentford or Ipswich went to watch. There were certainly a few interesting options in Porto’s squad, though.
Plenty of names to take a look at
Jakub Kiwior is an obvious one. The former Arsenal defender is now one of Porto’s most important players and started against City. He also played well despite his side losing 2-0.
There’s obviously less homework required with Kiwior. Forest, Brentford and Ipswich will already know plenty about him from his time in England.
Nehuén Pérez and Martim Fernandes are perhaps more interesting from a scouting point of view. Both started against Enzo Maresca’s side and got the chance to test themselves against one of Europe’s best attacks.
Porto also brought Borja Sainz, Seko Fofana and Francisco Moura (this one was a Coventry target all summer) off the bench. All affordable, smart possible targets.
Again, there’s nothing from A Bola saying any of those players were the reason for the English visits. They are simply some of the names who were on show of cours.
But for clubs looking for clever additions outside the most expensive end of the market, Porto isn’t exactly a bad place to go shopping.
One player was impossible to ignore
Even if the scouts travelled with completely different names on their lists, Diogo Costa probably ended up taking plenty of their attention.
City won 2-0 and Erling Haaland scored both goals. Without Costa, it could have been much uglier for Porto. The goalkeeper had a superb night.
But Costa isn’t some hidden gem waiting to be discovered of course. He’s Portugal’s number one and would cost serious money.
The more realistic scouting work for Forest, Brentford and Ipswich may therefore have been happening elsewhere on the pitch.
Either way, Porto against Manchester City was a pretty good place to spend an evening taking notes.
