Lucas Paqueta SIGNED

[Alan]

"Lucas Paqueta: Lost in Milan, reborn at Lyon – and now West Ham’s statement signing By James Horncastle From the mountains overlooking Rio de Janeiro you can, on a clear day, see a small island across the Guanabara Bay. It was here, in 1997, that the man set to become West Ham’s club-record signing, Lucas Tolentino Coelho da Lima, was born, a player better known by the name of his birthplace, the once-glamorous Ilha de Paqueta. The journey he embarked on to become a professional footballer began with his grandfather Mirao ushering him and his older brother onto a ferry to cross the water between their home and Rio de Janeiro, where Lucas Paqueta attended Flamengo’s Gavea academy and Matheus trained at Ninho, another of the club’s facilities. Paqueta has a tattoo on his forearm of a star and the letter “M” in recognition of the contribution his late grandfather made in making him who he is today; an established Brazil international upon whom clubs in Italy, France and England have lavished more than €100million (£84.8m; $100m) in transfer fees before his 25th birthday. The “Brazil premium” is still very much a thing, although just imagine what Paqueta would go for had he been born and raised on Canvey Island in Essex and called Luke Canvey. Presumably, he’d make Jack Grealish look cheap. But we digress. At Gavea, the boy off the boat impressed. Growing up on an island with no cars, Paqueta played uninterrupted for hours in the streets and on the beach. He had a rare touch and feel for the game. One of his youth coaches Ze Ricardo marvelled at Paqueta’s universal skill set. He was like every midfielder rolled into one. “He could develop into a No 5, 6, 7, 8, a No 10,” Ze Ricardo told France Football. “He was very intelligent. He knew how to position himself and was fearless.” But at 15, Paqueta was under-sized for his age. The growth spurt his peers experienced didn’t arrive and all of a sudden the star of Flamengo’s youth sector couldn’t get into the team anymore. Paqueta didn’t take it very well. He cried and was irritable. Maybe this was it? All those nights catching the last ferry, the 21-mile roundtrip with Mirao. All for what? To go back to being a tour guide on the island, a job Paqueta did for some extra pocket money in his spare time? His mother wouldn’t stand for it. She went down to the academy and kicked up a fuss. Flamengo came round to her point of view and drew up a bespoke plan for Paqueta. Targeted nutrition, a bit of power training and fitness work had the desired effect and he shot up, gaining about a foot in height. It was all worth it. Paqueta ran the show as Flamengo’s under-17s won the Copinha and when the club’s first-team coach Muricy Ramalho asked the academy chiefs if they had anyone for him, one teenager stood out. Not long after making his debut in the Rio state championship, Paqueta scored his first goal in the professional game. It was no ordinary goal either. Tricks in tight spaces and his knack for making a mark on big occasions — Paqueta scored in the 2017 Copa do Brasil and Copa Sudamericana finals — then quickly made him the darling of Flamengo fans. Among them was one of their former players, Leonardo, who was back at AC Milan as the club’s sporting director. After hanging up his boots, he had cut his teeth in recruitment working under former chief executive Adriano Galliani. As the only Brazilian in Milan’s old offices on Via Turati, the signings of Thiago Silva and Alexandre Pato were widely credited to him. One of Leonardo’s first moves upon returning to the club after leaving Paris Saint-Germain and trying his hand at coaching again with Antalyaspor was to attempt to sign the next big thing out of Brazil. A deal worth €35million was struck with Flamengo in the autumn of 2018 and Paqueta joined the following January. There were echoes of Pato’s arrival a little over a decade earlier and the nostalgia hit hard. Leonardo had accompanied Kaka to Paris to collect his Ballon d’Or in 2007 and, as he left, famously remarked he’d be back with Pato. Injuries ultimately stopped him from fulfilling his potential but the talent was obvious. Memories of the early Pato, along with the illustrious association between Brazil and the last great Milan sides, loaded tremendous expectation on Paqueta’s shoulders. The rainbow flick he performed on his Serie A debut against Genoa only added to it. Had Leonardo only gone and found the new Kaka? Fans at San Siro certainly hoped so. After all, this wasn’t 2003, when Kaka joined a Champions League-winning team and people wondered whether this preppy-looking kid from Sao Paulo would get a game amid competition from Manuel Rui Costa and Rivaldo. In 2019, Milan needed a saviour. The club hadn’t been in the Champions League for five years and would have gone to the wall had Elliott Management not repossessed it from Li Yonghong. The hope projected on Paqueta was that he might almost single-handedly make Milan elite again. Paqueta’s adaptation wasn’t easy. Whereas in the past there would have been a group of players like Dida, Serginho, Cafu, Thiago Silva, Pato and Kaka to help him settle in, by the time Paqueta arrived at Milanello there were no Brazilians left at the club. The second language at Milan these days is French, not Portuguese, and when Leonardo left six months after signing Paqueta, his protege felt isolated. Paqueta was only there a year, but the club went through three coaches. When he joined midway through the season, Rino Gattuso had already settled on his best team and couldn’t find a spot for him. Marco Giampaolo told Paqueta to be “less Brazilian and more concrete, less showy”. By the time Stefano Pioli got the job, the direction of travel was hard to reverse and the midfield player who benefited most from his appointment turned out to be Hakan Calhanoglu. Paqueta, in Pioli’s mind, needed to be “more incisive”. Internally, Milan were of the opinion they had overpaid Flamengo for what Paqueta was at the time. The €21million Lyon were prepared to pay for him in the late summer of 2020 was therefore considered something of a miracle and the 15 per cent sell-on Milan cleverly negotiated means they will get their money back and have a nice windfall ahead of the final week of the transfer window. There are no regrets, even though Lyon will make close to three times what Paqueta cost them. He has flourished in Ligue 1. “I put myself under a lot of pressure in Milan,” Paqueta reflected in L’Equipe. “Too much even. When I moved to France I told myself I didn’t have to put myself through that again. I just had to do my best. “Sometimes there isn’t a reason for failure. My time at Milan wasn’t extraordinary by any means, I probably achieved less than expected, but it served me well and made me a better player; a different, stronger player who rediscovered the essence of what he was at Flamengo. The pressure is still there but it doesn’t come from myself anymore.” In Lyon, Paqueta found another big club, just not one on the same scale as Milan. The environment was less demanding than San Siro and the league less tactically strait-jacketed than Serie A. Behind the transfer was another legend of the Brazilian game, the free-kick maestro Juninho Pernambucano, who had been enticed back to Lyon as the club’s sporting director to build a team mixing the best products of Europe’s finest academy with the technical refinement of his home nation, namely Paqueta, Bruno Guimaraes and Thiago Mendes. The team that reached the semi-finals of the 2020 Champions League under Rudi Garcia, upsetting Juventus and Manchester City along the way, evolved from an aggressive, transition-based 3-5-2 to a 4-3-3 which sought control through a neat possession game made possible thanks to the quintet of Brazilians, Houssem Aouar and Maxence Caqueret. It promised a lot and a 1-0 win away to Mauricio Pochettino’s PSG before Christmas showcased the elegant press-resistant side to Paqueta’s game as he helped Lyon relieve the pressure around their penalty area and get up the pitch. Paqueta offered glimpses of a complete midfielder, whose ability to disrupt opponents as they progressed towards Lyon’s goal married the aesthetic with the aggressive. On the ball, as his smarterscout profile below shows, he often kept his passing short and sharp, with neat interchange (link-up play volume 86 out of 99) rather than longer, searching balls upfield (progressive passing 27 out of 99). Those actions seemingly kept possession at an above-average rate compared with other central attacking midfielders (ball retention ability 59 out of 99). Off the ball, Paqueta’s ability to disrupt opponents with his high volume of defensive actions such as tackles and blocks (disrupting opposition moves 98 out of 99) was also highly effective in preventing opponents from progressing towards Lyon’s goal (defending impact 73 out of 99). Halfway through his first campaign in Ligue 1, L’Equipe named him in their team of the season so far. Once the polemic subsided about Tite prematurely handing Lucas Paqueta the Brazil No 10 shirt for a friendly against Argentina in 2019 — a decision Rivaldo took as a lack of respect for Rivelino, Zico and Ronaldinho — he established himself as a regular. His versatility means he will probably start at the World Cup. “He has the talent to be one of the top players,” Emerson Palmieri told The Athletic earlier this summer. The Euro 2020 winner spent last season on loan at Lyon and will be reunited with Paqueta after joining West Ham from Chelsea. “He’s still young and I believe we have to have patience with him because sometimes youngsters have ups and downs.” The oscillating performances Palmieri touches upon refers to the Lyonnais perception of Paqueta as an absolute joy to watch on his day. But he lacks consistency. Garcia felt he needed to show more killer instinct in his passing rather than playing simple, short and sideways. The team also went backwards in Paqueta’s time, declining from Champions League semi-finalists to no Champions League football at all in back-to-back years. Last season under Peter Bosz was the worst the club has experienced in a quarter of a century. Either the team underperformed or wasn’t as good as people thought. Guimaraes was sold to Newcastle in January to offset some of the lost earnings from missing out on the Champions League and Lyon have gone back to players they can rely on like Alexandre Lacazette and Corentin Tolisso. More substance, less style. Paqueta was ready for a new challenge but the lacklustre showings he put in over the second half of the last campaign also made Lyon open to moving on. Romain Faivre can replace him between the lines and Jeff Reine Adelaide’s return from injury covers Lyon in midfield. A fee of up to €60million from West Ham is frankly too good to turn down and would make Paqueta the club’s most lucrative sale after Tanguy Ndombele. West Ham fans will be hoping they get more bang for their buck than Tottenham did for their record signing who returned to Lyon on loan last season and is now at Napoli. “His quality is there for all to see,” Palmieri said of Paqueta. “He’s a dedicated guy, someone who is obsessed with winning games and competing for titles. He has everything he needs to develop further. I think he has a brilliant future ahead of him.”"

[El Scorchio]

It was clear he was properly injured. No idea why anyone would think otherwise. He doesn't seem the type to run and hide from adversity from what I've seen so far. Huge blow if he misses substantial time. Same with Aguerd.

[paulon]

"Out for weeks according to Whetstone, same with Aguerd Which must be a bit gutting for a few on here who comically reckoned he was faking it"

[New Jersey]

I was at Leeds and was absolutely gob smacked when he was subbed. He was just beginning to control the game and Dour Dave subbed him the dick!

[marty feldman]

Some of the slagging off of paqueta earlier today is absolute comedy gold . You just know the ones doing it never watched yesterday's game or the Leeds one either . He may or may not worth the potential fee we paid for him . But he's way better than some are implying.

[Pentonville]

"I am sure most of us on here have at least 20 years of watching West Ham. I'm into my 43rd year of actually being aware of what is going on, on the pitch. Interesting how opinions differ but none can be dismissed as all come from a good place and a different viewpoint. In my opinion I just feel like Paquetta is someone we will miss if he left already. I believe even his mistakes show a better player than the ones we have and I have a funny feeling he is going to be the one who ultimately saves our season. I reckon he is a big game player and we must accommodate him. Benrhama on the other hand is a Trevor Morely type player where he can have his moments but ultimately is powder puff and not up for the scrap. I am happy when I see Paqueta on teamsheet..makes me think we have the unknown quantity even from deep. Multi dimensional and when you compare that to Soucek, not even an argument."

[Crassus]

"FCJ If you need a saw and go to BandQ and buy a hammer that you think is a saw, don't complain that the hammer won't cut 2x2's Paq' is a continuity player, if the manager suppresses the movement around you there is fuck all to continue unless you try the improbably or play a five yarder He is a grafter, gets stuck in, has a pass, capable in the air and can look after himself - patience and a system that suits is required"

[Crassus]

"Stubbo 11:16 Sun Feb 5 Astute observation mate, agree Also worth cutting him some slack on the criticism of trying the Hollywood ball/flick. I like that he continues bravely at least attempting the unexpected. He is getting up to our game's speed and the signs are there that he will be a good buy Of the cost? £35m plus add ons - well what exactly do you get for that these days eh? Look around the league at what others have/are spending then getting and concede that money gets you an average PL performer - this lad is better than average and potentially a great performer"

[Crassus]

"Stubbo 11:16 Sun Feb 5 Astute observation mate, agree Also worth cutting him some slack on the criticism of trying the Hollywood ball/flick. I like that he continues bravely at least attempting the unexpected. He is getting up to our game's speed and the signs are there that he will be a good buy Of the cost? £35m plus add ons - well what exactly do you get for that these days eh? Look around the league at what others have/are spending then getting and concede that money gets you an average PL performer - this lad is better than average and potentially a great performer"

[Full Claret Jacket]

Not the player I thought we had signed. Was looking for him to be a stand out player and really what we are seeing is very little. Still looks lost with no understanding with his team mates. Technically you can see he is good but not seeing vision or creativity or even much of an ability to keep the ball.

[Come On You Irons]

This guy has scored ONE goal from open play in half a season since we forked out £50 million for him. I'm not going get my cock out and start to spunk over him after scoring a single tap in from open play in half a season. He still gets dispossessed too often and too easily. He still strolls about in the middle of the park and he still tries fancy dan flicks and tricks and invariably gives it away when it's easier to protect the ball and retain possession with a simple pass. We are going down with this bloke in our midfield.

[fraser]

"£35 million with add ons rising to £50 million I read yesterday.. OK for that money, its 2023 Chelsea wanted £45 million for Gallagher. Oh and he's used to playing as an 8 and looking a lot better now he's playing there.."

[stubbo]

"IMO opinion he's ending up a player we needed, but not the player we thought we were getting. Soucek always needed upgrading for a better more capable playmaking number 8, and Paqueta is looking like that. He's not the magical number 10 that was going to elevate our creative game, but in his proper position now, and he's showing he does improve our side. Seems we're stuck with 3-4-3 now since Cresswell has gone to bits and Emerson isn't trusted to play as left back, and the irony is in that formation we don't even need a number 10. Yesterday he helped us retain possession, linked the midfield and attack, got round the pitch putting a shift in. If we accept him for what he is...a number 8 with plenty of graft and an eye for a pass, then he'll end up a good signing. Just need someone to play alongside him next season when Rice is off."

[Stowie.40]

"Price tag will go against him, agree he is never a 50m player. I don’t think we actually needed the type of player he is. Playing next to Rice he is gonna have to quickly learn the right times to play cos ever since he came he has got caught a hell of a lot dallying on the ball and taking to many touches. Puts himself about though and he did some nice things yesterday, one of his better games."

[RM10]

I’m hoping this is the start of good form as I see other new signings in other teams come straight in and perform. Still think £50m wasted

[Manuel]

"Maybe if we lowered our expectations on him, i.e he isn't going to get as many goals and assists as we had hoped and we probably over paid for him, then we should be happy to have a good player with us. At least he gives a shit, which always helps."

[Mex Martillo]

Played really well yesterday. Nice he got his first goal. I think he'll be worth the crazy price paid.

[Rossal]

In Moyes' podcast he mentions signing big names to get kids excited to be the next generation of fans and to sell shirts etc Feels like he was signed for that..... I mean..... has he had a shot or a decent chance from open play yet??

[Russ of the BML]

"Mr Anon 10:44 Thu Jan 19 That's a stupid comment. You base it on what he's done for West Ham not what he's done for Brazil. And even so, I watched him very closely in the WC and in both those games he was quiet and got pulled at half time. Brazil then looked better once he'd gone off. So you say if he's good enough for Brazil but then that's not even true."

[Mr Anon]

"BBondsBootlaces 10:29 Wed Jan 18 Re: Lucas Paqueta SIGNED Good enough for the 5 time world cup winners first team, not good enough for West Ham. O-K.. About as relevant as saying well if West Ham are good enough for Moore And Hurst it should be good enough for Salah"

[Ant L]

"As much as I want Pacqueta to succeed at West Ham, I can't help but feel this signing was a Sullivan ego-boost and chance to flex. He can fit in the team but it isn't helped when apparent deadwood HOTY Soucek sits next to him in the middle."

[Mace66]

"BBondsBootlaces 10:29 Wed Jan 18 Re: Lucas Paqueta SIGNED Good enough for the 5 time world cup winners first team, not good enough for West Ham. O-K.... And what about Richardson the poor cսnt, all that Brazilian World Cup history and he‚Äôs 2nd choice behind Harry Kane, he should be GUARANTEED 1st choice coming from the same country as Pele, Roberto Carlos etc"

[RM10]

"I haven’t, I want to but he just hasn’t delivered"

[Pedro]

I enjoy watching him play. Won’t see such players in the championship.

[zebthecat]

zico 10:35 Wed Jan 18

[Pagey]

"BBondsBootlaces 10:29 Wed Jan 18 Re: Lucas Paqueta SIGNED Good enough for the 5 time world cup winners first team, not good enough for West Ham. O-K... …………. I didn’t realise he played for Brazil in 1958, 1962, 1970, 1994 & 2002. To be fair, he does look good for a man in his 80’s."