What the HELL were we thinking? The Brazilian edition…

By: Magnusson | November 14th, 2007

This “what the HELL were we thinking?” column came to me when Sam commented on the recent departure of Matt Moussilou after 120 minutes with the jersey. That particular player’s recruitment -This is a guy who hasn’t played in a year, mind you – prompted the question of “what the fuck was José thinking when he recruited him?”. Now the same José Anigo is in Argentina for a few weeks to see some players he has had his eyes on to prepare what could be the most eventful Mercato we’ve had in years. Let’s just hope he doesn’t go with his gut instinct (the one that told him Mendoza would have a Drogba-like season) and picks some ready-to-perform players, no prospect nor Argentian U-17 captains. Renato Civelli is NEVER going to be better than Gago, José! I don’t believe you anymore. In honor of the recruitment of some unknown player who will play twice and finish his career with Basel where he will put the Swiss League on fire, here is a list of a few players we could have done before. And before getting into specifics, I decided to go with the biggest myth in Football. The one that gets practically any portuguese-speaker some credit when they wear cleats: All brazilians are better than you with a ball.

Oh Brazil, the land of Football and women. We have beautiful women, but I don’t imagine them being as often undressed as the brazilians are. We have football but it’s nowhere near as exhuberant as brazilian football is supposed to be. So when we want our girls to get loose, we make sure they drink Caipirinha and crank up the Baile Funk. And when we want our football to get flamboyant, we make sure to get us some Amarelinhos. The problem is that sometimes you get drunk on your own beverage and wake up next to a naked pre-op tranny, same goes when you recruit a brazilian player. You can get legendary players that will leave an indelible mark on the club like Carlos Mozer, Sonny Anderson (you’re welcome Jean-Michel), Jairzinho and Paulo César or you can have a very unpleasant surprise.
Indeed, sometimes we get what is called a bust in the NBA Draft. A guy that should have never worn our jersey but somehow does and turns out to be really horrible. Or someone who comes, takes some more time to adapt than planned, leaves and becomes one of the best players that could have played for us. We’ve had our fair share, as many european clubs before us, but Marseille just seems cursed when we pick “the next [pick player too expensive for us to afford the phone call charges]“. Here are a few casting errors of the Marseille staff throughout the years.

EDSON – Edson Luiz da Silva – 98/99 – 14 games, 1 goal, 5 months.
Our very first next Roberto Carlos. We acatually recruited him without ever seeing him play. The hype on him after the World Cup was monstruous. He was very heavily flirted with during the 96 season when Real Madrid believed they couldn’t get Roberto Carlos from Inter Milan. When the move was done a year before, marseille believed they were making the deal of the century, buying Edson from Recife at his original price, and Spongebob (That’s Robert Louis-Dreyfus) was more than happy to pay the note. You gotta understand we wanted to win the Champions League on our centennial year with heavy recruitment. To be perfectly fair with him, he may have stayed longer if William Gallas didn’t come out of nowhere to be the player he still is today. Edson went back to Brazil and never came back as soon as he was benched. I’m just glad we signed him for seven years.
Today, Edson has been elected “Player of the Century” of Polish club Legia Warsaw last year. His lefty free-kicks are as famous as Juninho’s in Poland apparently.

MARCELINHO – Marcelo dos Santos Paráiba – 00/01 – 21 games, 4 goals, 7 months.
This is not technically a bust. This guy was the winner of the Copa Libertadores and basically one of the best strikers still in Brazil. Yet when he came, he made enough dribbles for his jersey to be a best seller at Christmas and while everybody thought his adaptation problem would be over, we sent him back to Brazil at Gremio Porto Alegre where, playing with a youngster named Ronaldinho, he managed to be included in the Selecao four months after leaving us. He then was elected best foreign player in Germany while playing for Herta Berlin. When I think that Abel Braga fired him because he “lacked the talent to try what he’s trying on the pitch”, I’m just wondering how good someone needs to be to become a coach at Marseille.
That 2000 season was the messiest ever. We had thirteen new players come during the summer and seven during the winter mercato. We feared to be relegated the previous season and only stayed in the Ligue 1 because of one goal. The year after, Ibrahima Bakayoko saved us by scoring twice against Bastia in the last game of the season at the 88th and 97th (I know!) minute.

ADRIANO GABIRU – Carlos Andriano de Souza Vieira – 14 games, 3 goals, 7 months.
Same season, same consequences. Adriano came at the same time as Marcelinho but was Abel Braga’s recruit. He is Robert Carlos’s brother but has none of his robustness. He was litterally Robinho before Robinho but just had to lift some weight for some time. He was technically gifted but was not made for the phisicality of the Ligue 1 at the time. He actually was a player of the “new seleçao” Emerson Leao wanted to create before getting fired himself. The one seleçao that drew Australia only after Ronaldinho came on and scored in the last 20 minutes, the one that also drew Paraguay and had to destroy Colombia 9-0 to get to the Olympics, that seleçao.
Adriano went back to the brazilian championship he should’ve never left in the first place in the opinion of many. He also went back to the rivers of cooch he was getting (father of six at 23 if I remember correctly) and never came back to Europe at almost 30 now. Thse six months were just enough for him to understand he was not built for it.

LEOZINHO MATOS – Léonardo de Matos Cruz – 0 games, 0 goals, 4 years.
You’ve never heard of him, don’t lie. After an impressive outting at the U-17 World Cup in 2003, Marseille outbid Madrid, Barcelona, Manchester and Arsenal for someone supposed to be the best right back outta Brazil since Cafu. We bought him for millions and forgot to keep Mathieu Flamini when his contract was up. This is really uncromprehensible. We buy someone at seventeen, form him, loan him to Flamengo where he is pretty good, he plays some friendlies with us and we decide at the end of the 06/07 season to let him go because “he’ll never adapt to our team”. Than three weeks later, we let Habib Beye go and have no more right-backs. How do you buy someone 6 million Euros and let him go without an official game under his belt?
At only 20 still, this one could go either way. After his great season start, he’s getting some more hype and should be back in the U21 brazilian team soon. At least he gave us a lesson, never buy a brazilian player this expensive. So when Leozinho’s agent called to propose the services of his other jewel, Anderson, we made sure to refuse THAT seventeen year-old. Porto got him, he played twenty games in a two season halves and was sold to ManU for more money than Ribery. We are just smart like that.

FERNANDAO – Lúcio Fernando da Costa – 61 games, 6 goals, 27 months
At the beginning of the 2001 season, we had already bought him and his friend Dill. The latter was fired before even playing and Bernard Tapie was brought back to organize the club again. He hired Stanislas Ivic and started firind at an amazing pace. This player was bad but the situation made him worse. He came as the captain of Goias, a team that somehow reasonnates in all of us as a good brazilian club because José Aloisio was the best player in France at the time. Anyway, Fernandao was a running joke in the Vélodrome and never failed to bore us. As a brazilian, he had more heart than skill which made him kinda popular but he stayed this long because we made him go from striker to right back most of the season. After his two years with us, we sold him to Toulouse and by scoring six goals in 16 games, he helped them stay in the Ligue 1. On a roll, he went back to Brazil to get his first and only cap against Guatemala.

ANDRE LUIZ MOREIRA & ANDRE LUIS GARCIA – 01/03, 05/06, 54 games , 4 goals, 6 months and 2 seasons
They didn’t come as a package deal but since everyone is confusing one for the other, let’s not try to deny the obvious, they both sucked and that’s why you don’t remember who the fuck is who. One of them was a center-back and the other was supposed to be midfielder. Both of them were recruited to replace African players that would go to the African Cup of Nations and were basically loaned or sold after less than 20 games each of Ligue1. Andre Luis Garcia went back to Benfica (he was a loan since by that time we were broke and trophiless and our beloved SpongeBob was fed up with sponging debts) where I wonder if he plays. Andre Luiz Moreira is a fond memeory for me since we managed to sell him to that club that we hate and he made them lose two game in three weeks. They were quick enough to understand he was not very good but he actually was their starting midfielder at some point. He went back to Brazil and was bought again by Ajaccio where he was some kind of a scoring machine for three weeks. And for all I know , he might still be there.

A lot more brazilian players came and went. Some better than others but none that raised the question of “What the hell were they thinking?” better than these. I’ll evidently write about some others from time to time and some of you will remind me. But I’d like to thank Sam for the inspiration. This was insane fun for me to reminisce over some funny discussions I’ve had over the years with my many PSG fan friends and I know the debate over “which club under which administration recruited the worst player” will live forever.