You don’t have to speak Portuguese to understand that A Bola are making strong claims about Pep Guardiola and Ederson on their front page today.
According to the newspaper, the Manchester City manager has recently telephoned the goalkeeper in what they call a ‘charm operation’.
Trying to find out why Guardiola did that, A Bola mentions the possibility of the manager knowing how advanced things are in the race to sign Ederson.
Manchester City are said to have competition from Barcelona, but the call may be a sign the English side are ahead. That makes general sense anyway, given Manchester City are the club with the greater need.
It’s reported that Guardiola has liked Ederson since the goalkeeper’s performance against Bayern Munich in the Champions League last season, which led the manager to have people scouting the player ever since. These claims have already been made, so it’s not 
something the newspaper is only coming up with today.
Manchester City would be paying something between €35m and €40m for the goalkeeper. That’s not too inflated, considering he currently has a €50m release clause and Benfica will only get half of it, as the other half goes to his old club Rio Ave.
Gabriel Jesus has spoken about a telephone call from Guardiola helping him to make his mind up over signing for Manchester City, and perhaps the manager is doing the same thing again.
