Lyon have finalised a €24 million deal for the FC Porto forward Lisandro Lopez. The record breaking deal is the largest in club history, and will see the Portuguese striker at STADE MUNICIPAL DE GERLAND for a five year contract.
“Lisandro Lopez today signed a professional contract with Lyon for a duration of five years, having passed the traditional medical necessary for the completion of the transfer,” read a statement from the Lyon official club website.
The immeadiate replacement for French international star, and now Real Madrid striker Karim Benzema was a no-brainer. I must say Lopez may get the job done.
My only question is whats going on in Porto? They are just selling off stars like crazy! Who is gonna be next to go? I hear almost every year that huge clubs like Manchester United and Barcelona are always interested in star winger Hulk. When I heard of Ronaldo’s departure from Old Trafford I immeadiately thought of Hulk as his replacement, but I was fooled. Now Bruno Alves to Chelsea? The defender has recently said that there has been intrest from Chelsea and he wouldn’t mind a move to the blues.
I’m sure the Portuguese champions are sitting on a mountain of cash after selling off stars like Lopez and Gonzalez to Lyon and Marseille.
So where is that money going to be put to use? I just hope this doesn’t keep FC Porto from another long run in the Chamipons League this season. Last years run was very un-expected as well as entertaining.
What is Johnathan Long talking about and how lacking is his knowledge on both footballing matters and FC Porto?
So Far Porto have sold :-
Lucho González – to Marseilles for 18,000,000 €
and
Lisandro López to Lyon for 24,000,000 €
so in terms of Star players, we’ve sold the massive total of two! we have also managed to sell off some of our fringe players.
We have signed:-
Beto from Leixões – 750,000 €
Orlando Sá from SC Braga
Miguel Lopes from Rio Ave – 600,000 €
Silvestre Varela from Estrela Amadora – 750,000 €
Maicon from CD Nacional – 1,100,000 €
Alvaro Pereira from CFR Cluj – 4,500,000 €
Fernando Belluschi from Olympiakos FC – 5,000,000 €
Falcao from River Plate – 5,500,000 €
so we’ve brought in a fair amount of talent.
This is the perpetual cycle that a club like FC Porto is on, we have a fantastic scouting system, buy players on the cheap, develop them then sell them on for big money and in nearly 30 years I haven’t seen them lose their competitive edge very often.
haha you got the point daniel…
Also worth noting that FC Porto have won the European cup twice, once in the old format and in the current one. They have also won the Uefa Cup, European Super Cup (having contested 3 finals) and the intercontinental cup twice. They also appeared in the final of the Cup Winners Cup and played against what is undoubtely one of the greatest teams of our time.
so really “Last years very un-expected run” is only unexpected if you are ignorant to the size of the club.
Porto have one of the greatest scouting and transfer systems in the world, every year they constantly sell off big name players like Deco, Carvalho, Valente, Ferreira, Maniche, McCarthy, Quaresma, Anderson, Lucho, Lopez (just to name a few!), and yet they always seem to find players capable of filling the gaps left behind without going into debt.. I miss some of the players i won’t lie but Porto will always be a european force.
First off I know Porto is a tremendously GREAT club! I know tons of people have come through that place and are now stars. Secondly calm down. I know how great Porto is and I’m not taking away there dues. What I meant by where is the money going, is why haven’t they signed any BIG NAME players. I know they’ve made plenty of signings just I figure with all that money they got for Lucho and Lopez that they would have gotten someone with a bit more prestige behind his name. I know they have a huge ability for development and getting big money for players but it seemed like this year they were on the VERGE or going over board with the transfers. I mean with the Bruno rumours and selling off of Lucho,and now Lopez it was my opnion to simply state who would they have left besides Rodriguez and Hulk that are really mainstream names? AND yes they are a always a big team to watch for in the Champions League but honestly I doubt anyone knew they’d do so well against Mun Untd. SO CALM DOWN obviously no one is doubting your Favorite club (obviously) just making an observation and putting my opinion out there to be talked about.
The way I see it many people are far too ignorant and disrespectful of Porto… even the professional footballers themselves!
The reason I say this is because if you were to ask all the ‘big name’ players where they wanted to play thier football I can guarantee you that none of them would ever say “I want to play for FC Porto in the Portuguese Super Liga!”. Reason being because to be honest the at some clubs level/standard of football is fairly low and money is also not great.
So why bother trying to persuade and pursue all the ‘Superstars’ to join the club when we all know they wont… they’d rather all be sitting on the bench for Madrid but earning more in a year than everyone who’s posted above will do in a lifetime.
So thats why Porto do what they do… they get the players with quality that want the opportunity to play for a great club. We dont need to buy Ronaldo’s, Kaka’s or Benzema’s… we make them! To top that it’s for a cheap price and then in a season or two we sell them on again to all the rich clubs for a huge profit!
I agree that I have no clue where the hell all that money goes (and I hope it’s going to good use) but thats the art that FC Porto has mastered and that no other club in the world has ever managed to achive to such a high standard as Porto.