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In December 2010 the Hoffenheim sporting director, Ernst Tanner, travelled to the east coast of Brazil to check out a player at the second division side Figueirense. The reports had been promising but Tanner did not know what to expect as he turned up for training to watch the young Roberto Firmino Barbosa de Oliveira.
Afterwards, Tanner was not much the wiser. “It was strange because during some exercises he would just, without any apparent reason, just fold … but instead of making a big meal out of it and getting angry, he listened carefully to his coach and learned from what he had done wrong. That impressed me.”
It is perhaps not the most glowing reference ever heard from a scouting mission but Tanner convinced Hoffenheim that the 19-year-old, whose move to Liverpool was announced on Wednesday, was worth a gamble. In January 2011 the Bundesliga club signed the player for €4m without much fanfare. At the low-key unveiling Tanner explained the club’s plans for the unknown Brazilian.“We are delighted to have been able to strengthen our squad with a top talent from Brazil, in which several international clubs were interested,” he said. “We will give him enough time to settle in here at our club. He has already shown his qualities with eight goals in 36 games and was recently voted the best player in the Brazilian second division.”
In hindsight, Firmino could hardly have chosen a better club to start his European adventure. Hoffenheim is a tiny town south of Frankfurt with only around 3,000 inhabitants. The young Brazilian was allowed to settle without the pressure of being at a big club, or even in a big city.Hoffenheim are only in the Bundesliga because of Dietmar Hopp’s huge financial support but they have also been extremely successful with their South American imports. In the month Firmino arrived at Hoffenheim, the club sold Luiz Gustavo to Bayern Munich for €17m. He had arrived from Corinthians Alagoano in 2008 for an even smaller fee than Firmino did three years later.
Firmino, in fact, was looking forward to moving to Europe so much that he got himself a tattoo in German before he boarded the flight. There was only one slight problem: he had used an internet translation tool, which did not use the umlaut on the ö in the phrase Familie unaufhorlich Liebe, which roughly translates as “unremitting love for the family”.
Undeterred, the Brazilian made his Bundesliga debut a month after arriving in Germany and played in 11 league games that season, mainly as a substitute, scoring three goals; and this is the thing about Firmino, he is not an out-and-out goalscorer. He is a forward who averages roughly a goal every three games, and he has done that throughout his career.
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What he does provide, though, is an unrelenting work ethic. In that respect, he is similar to Luis Suárez and Alexis Sánchez. He will harry and press the opponents until he drops. In one match report in Germany he was described as the “clever, first stealer of balls in Hoffenheim’s pressing system”.
Holger Stanislawski, his first manager at Hoffenheim, immediately described him as being “unbelievably good tactically”, which will be music to Brendan Rodgers’ ears after a season of having to teach Mario Balotelli, among other things, how to defend at corners.
In fact he has been showered with praise for most of his time in Germany, the papers describing him as one of few players “who stay focused for the entire 90 minutes” and a “master of moving around without anyone noticing him, to provide goals or score them himself”.
There have been some disciplinary issues and he was once suspended briefly by Hoffenheim for turning up late for training but that was early on in his career and he has not done it since.The 23-year-old was born in Maceió – as was Pepe and Mario Zagallo – which is one of Brazil’s most dangerous cities. His father sold water bottles to commuters waiting in the queues in and out of the city and he had to move to Figueirense on his own when he was 16. “It was not an easy time,” he has said, “I was completely on my own.” But that experience will have prepared him for moving to Germany, and now to England.
The 2013-14 season was arguably Firmino’s best to date with the manager Markus Gisdol getting the best out of him. Gisdol not only made him a better attacking player but also instilled the workrate ethic that was surely a big reason for Liverpool paying as much as £29m for him.
That season he scored 16 goals in 33 Bundesliga games, finishing third behind Marco Reus (30) and Robert Lewandowski (31) in the goalscoring charts. He also provided 12 assists in that campaign and is, in fact, the player who has created most chances in the Bundesliga (138) over the past two seasons. Firmino also had the joint-third most assists last season (10) with Thomas Müller. Not bad for someone playing for a mid-table club.Currently with Brazil at the Copa América, Firmino has coped well with the pressure of leading the line now that Neymar is suspended and he has already scored four goals in nine appearances for the national team. Dunga’s side play Paraguay in the quarter-finals on Saturday.
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Behind the scenes, he is a bubbly, fun character but in front of the cameras he comes across as incredibly shy. On Tuesday, at a Copa press conference before his move was confirmed, he managed to answer 18 questions without saying anything of note. It got to a point where the Brazilian journalists could only smile.
Most importantly for Liverpool, though, is that they seem to have learned from last summer’s travails in the transfer market. Then, a deal for Loïc Rémy collapsed in late July and the club were forced into what can only be described as a panic buy with Balotelli in August. This time they have already signed James Milner, Adam Bogdan, Danny Ings and now Firmino.
The fee is eye-watering considering it is almost as much as Chelsea paid for Diego Costa and more (with add-ons) than Arsenal paid for Sánchez. But there is no doubt that he is an extremely talented young player who is still improving. There will be few defences in the Premier League looking forward to an afternoon battling Philippe Coutinho, Firmino and Daniel Sturridge – if fit.
And while £29m does seem a lot, if Raheem Sterling joins Manchester City for a fee of around £45-50m then Liverpool will have got a more consistent performer and made a hefty profit in the process. They will settle for that, and if Sterling stays, then opposing defences will be in even more trouble next season.Click & Close Ads
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Thursday, June 25, 2015
