After missing out on Brazilian wonderkid Endrick, who looks set to join Real Madrid, Chelsea are said to be looking elsewhere for the next up-and-coming talent.
The 16-year-old Palmeiras star is now expected to join Los Blancos for around €60million (£51.4m) despite an interest from Chelsea in the teenage sensation. Todd Boehly, though, who is looking to bring in some of world football's finest young talents, is not giving up there.
According to our friends at the Mirror, the Blues are now hoping to use their connections with agent Jorge Mendes to their advantage and look to sign 18-year-old Benfica star Diego Moreira in the summer. Moreira may be quite unknown to the average football fan, so football.london has profiled the teenage sensation.
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Who is Diego Moreira?
Born in the Belgian city of Liege on August 6, 2004, the Chelsea target began his footballing career in Belgium. Moreira began his youth career with local club Standard Liege before Benfica snapped him up in 2020.
Despite being born in Belgium and representing the country up until Under-15 level, Moreira now plays for Portugal Under-18s. He has been capped eight times by the U18s, scoring one goal in the process.
He made his debut for Benfica Under-23s in the 2020/21 season. He then became a regular for the side and his impressive displays earned him a spot in Benfica's B team in 2021/22. Moreira then got called up to the senior side by Nelson Verissimo, where he made his debut on May 13 of this year.
Chelsea's youth investment
As mentioned at the start of this article, Boehly, who was appointed as the club's co-owner in May, remains determined to invest in youth talent. There is a clear focus from the American in continuing Chelsea's fine work with their academy system.
Chelsea's director of football development and operations, Neil Bath, spoke about the club's 'Vision 2030': "Our attention will quickly be focused on the upcoming seasons and how we can improve and get better. One of the biggest parts of this is the implementation of our Vision 2030 strategy."
Bath added: "We've had the opportunity to set this plan out to Todd Boehly and the new owners in a series of meetings, during which their feedback and backing has been really positive and encouraging. We had tremendous support from Roman Abramovich over many years and now we are really excited to be starting a new era with these new ideas, innovations and strategies at the heart of taking us forward. It's an exciting time to be at the Chelsea Academy."
So far under Boehly's ownership, Chelsea have brought in the likes of Carney Chukwuemeka, Cesare Casadei, Omari Hutchinson and Gabriel Slonina, among others. They will be hoping Moreira will be the latest addition to this list following the failure to sign Endrick.
It's a tactic Manchester United have tried and succeeded in over recent times, buying young talent from Portugal. See a certain Cristiano Ronaldo, for instance, as well as Nani, who despite not being as much of a success than the former, proved to be a great signing under Sir Alex Ferguson.
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