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.”"

[british is best]

Another seriously good player. Being completely misused just like scamacca Haller Anderson chicharito all have one common denominator DAVID MOYES.

[martyboy]

He is the only player we have that can pass a ball more than 5 yards. Why pick on him? There's a lot worse on the pitch then him!!

[onsideman]

It's both

[southbankbornnbred]

"He has been awful for £50m, granted. It’s just impossible to tell whether the problem is him or Moyes."

[Manuel]

"Okay, so he wasn't any worse than anyone else yesterday, but come on what the fuck is this fella meant to be doing? 50 fucking mil, for what exactly? Yes, we're a joke outfit, and yes he might not be playing in his proper position, but fuck me surely he should still be producing something over the piece?? Would he suddenly start shining under a new manager and start to influence games like he is meant to be dong? My money say NO, and say that we have done our money on him. Also noticed he was chatting away and laughing in the tunnel with a Wolves player before the game, which for me says a lot about him and how many fucks he gives. Top pro's don't do that."

[Westham67]

Stubbo. That's what I meant it's not effective

[cholo]

*of Mike Marsh

[cholo]

"Before he signed like most of us I wasn't sure what we were getting, I thought he didn't have much pace so I imagined a Pirlo type playmaker, full of clever touches and beguiling us with cute short and long range passes. What we appear to have is the reincarnation to Mike Marsh."

[zico]

"We don't have too many good crossers of the ball. Cresswell is probably the best but his legs stop him from getting into the positions enough now. It was painful to watch Coufal trying to cross. You had Antonio near post, Soucek and Scamacca in the middle and yet Coufal crossed far post where our giant attacker Benrahma tried in vain to win a header!"

[stubbo]

Agreed. But crossing as an approach is flawed IMO. Went looking for something to back this up and found this analysis: https://soccerment.com/crossing-effective-strategy/ Suggests goals are scored from 1.6% of crosses. Not exactly a fruitful strategy.

[Westham67]

You are right but I assume his passing and ball retention stats are for are team not hoofing the ball into the box from the wings

[stubbo]

"But the point is, the blues and greens are where you'd hope he'd excel, with the reds the nice to haves for an attack minded player. That he doesn't means what we're seeing is not remotely unusual based on that performance assessment. He's decent defensively (for a CAM), plays lots of short passes, but well below average in actions that have impact in the final third."

[stubbo]

Attacking mids (not kids) of course.

[stubbo]

"The other thing to say...assuming it is in percentiles and judged against other attacking kids...that graph from the athletic doesn't look all that great for an attacking midfielder. The areas of excellence are the defensive areas, and the offensive areas are all pretty poor. Might be reading it wrong of course as it lacks any kind of key/legend/context."

[Westham67]

"There is no quick coming from the backs once Aguerd come back that may change, Cresswell is the worry"

[Nick QQQ]

"Not sure you can judge a playmaker in this team. The movement is awful. Same when Rice picks up the ball as well. Let’s be honest none of the team are playing well and the drop of form for players like Bowen, Fornals amongst others suggests it’s all a bit fucked. I’m not saying I’m massively impressed so far but it must be difficult coming into this side with this kind of form on very rigid tactics."

[Crassus]

"zico I hear you mate and mentioned earlier that I'm somewhat underwhelmed by him But, in mitigation a playmaker requires mobility around him, a rapier ball is superb if someone anticipates and runs on to it, it is utterly misplaced if the buggers are playing statues and the ball lands in no mans land Same with a quick 10 yarder to break the lines, looks awful if they just walk on to it because no one anticipated the space He clearly looks for the game changer and is ready to receive the ball irrespective of markers - he is a player But, I'm not sure he is one for us, specifically under Moyes, then again Modric would struggle in this set up One thing is clear, as someone else said, he totally ran out of gas on the hour chasing about the gaffe and will need up that anti to survive in this league whomever he is playing with and under"

[zico]

"Crassus, ha ha. Good analogy. Totally get you and I wholeheartedly agree, after all he never put Vlasic in central AM for instance, although doubt that would have made much difference. All I'm saying is at times Paqueta is off the mark on his passing, which is of course a plus for a creative player. It will have a lot to do with Moyes, plus language and pace of premier league also take time I'm just saying I'd like to see more of all the players regardless on how crap the manager is."

[Crassus]

"Zico I'll explain, if I may Moyes is the sort of bloke that trots to B&Q having done a months research upon the best claw hammers - handle, metal type, shaft length and of course dimensions so it does not disrupt his tool bag Next day he's on a job and needs screw some panels, so takes out his shiny claw hammer and staggeringly his new tool is struggling to deliver the screws correctly Of course he has some drivers in his bag, but he saves those for cutting the panels His governor appears and suggests that he is fucking the job up - of course it's not his fault, the hammer is not doing what's required and like Paq', he is 'working out how to best use him' The bloke is a dour, arrogant, Scotcher, shitcunt, who no one else would employ before we did and no one will after - which of course he well knows, so he will drain the last farthing out of the job before he fucks off into deserved obscurity I maybe appear tad subjective upon the bloke, so concede that I absolutely loath the cսnt"

[zico]

"In my humble opinion it doesn't matter who the manager is if a player is a quality player he can and should show it. Sure a manager can carve out a role that gets the best out of the player but Paqueta is still playing in the centre of midfield, he can still get hold of the ball, pass it and create but for me he isn't doing enough of that. Same with Scammaca, all very well waving his arms about when Coufals cross yet again gets claimed by the keeper, but bang the keeper into the back of the net then so he might be a bit more wary next time around. Yes Moyes has lost the plot and yes roles in a team can improve a player but the manager doesn't play, players do and this lot currently should be playing better than they are regardless of the manager."

[zico]

"In my humble opinion it doesn't matter who the manager is if a player is a quality player he can and should show it. Sure a manager can carve out a role that gets the best out of the player but Paqueta is still playing in the centre of midfield, he can still get hold of the ball, pass it and create but for me he isn't doing enough of that. Same with Scammaca, all very well waving his arms about when Coufals cross yet again gets claimed by the keeper, but bang the keeper into the back of the net then so he might be a bit more wary next time around. Yes Moyes has lost the plot and yes roles in a team can improve a player but the manager doesn't play, players do and this lot currently should be playing better than they are regardless of the manager."

[simon.s]

Thank fuck Payet never got to put on the shirt under this fraud.

[Lato]

"It's obvious Moyes doesn't know how to utilise flair players like Paqueta and Benny. He is also first to dig out particularly Benny when things go wrong which is bang out of order. Paqueta looks completely lost and bewildered, this maybe a language problem and or the negative way we play. Unless dithering Dave can get us out of our current death spin we will have yet another negative on our balance sheet as our expensive recruits are sold on for peanuts."

[iphammer]

He is shit and worse than Anderson. We got rid of Haller and brought in Scammaca who has done what Haller did fuck all and got rid of Anderson and brought in this muppet.

[master]

So he's capable of a lot but clearly doesn't have a coach who can focus and hone that skill into creating chances for us.