FC Barcelona Want To Sign Santos Pair Of Brazilian Pearls

Despite it being a pretty unremarkable small city on the coast of Sao Paulo state otherwise, the name Santos is known worldwide for the undeniable impact it has had on football.

In the late 1950s, its discovery of Pele provided Brazil with a star teenager capable of leading South America’s largest country to its first World Cup while two more Jules Rimet trophies followed in 1962 and 1970.

During that era of dominance interrupted only by England’s 1966 win on home soil, Santos arguably fielded the greatest club team of all time worthy of being spoken about in the same conversation as AC Milan in the late 1980s and Pep Guardiola’s FC Barcelona of the early 2010s.

And as they look to return to the glory of that era spearheaded by one of its most important players, Xavi Hernandez, the Blaugrana are said to be interested in two more emerging stars from the outfit that also produced the likes of Neymar and Rodrygo.

According to Mundo Deportivo, the Catalans have their eyes on 18-year-old Kaiky Fernandes and 17-year-old Angelo Gabriel.

While the former is a right-handed central defender rated at $9.2mn, he played 37 games in all competitions in his debut season last year and has stood out for his leadership qualities by captaining one of the Brazil national team’s youth categories.

The latter, like Neymar, is a left-sided winger who is currently valued at $11.5mn and has featured in more matches with 42 outings in total.

Yet while his return of just one goal and a single assist might seem meagre, that sole successful effort in the back of the net saw him become the youngest scorer in the history of the continent’s equivalent of the Champions League, the Copa Libertadores.

As is often the case, Barca will compete with a number of other outfits for their capture, and their relationship with Santos is hardly peachy given the problems that the $98.5mn deal for Neymar in 2013 brought.

On the other hand, Real Madrid have far better harmony with the Paulistas considering the ease of capturing Rodrygo before his 18th birthday, though they are more than covered in these positions given the rise of Vinicius Jr and the emergence of Eder Militao at center back.