Transfer question raised by sought-after Leeds United star Raphinha and his Brazil performance - YEP 6/6/22
The question for Raphinha’s suitors this summer is not simply ‘how much for Leeds United’s main man?’ but ‘how much for one of the World Cup favourites’ main men?’.
By Graham Smyth
He wasn’t in the goals against Japan in Brazil’s
Monday-morning friendly, the final minutes of a long season for a player who
will now jet off on holiday and mull over his club future as he bakes in the
sun, but he was in the action and he was always available.
The yellow shirt he wore in a 1-0 victory in Tokyo will be
on his mind as he deliberates the options put to him by his agent Deco.
Playing in the World Cup this year is, understandably, one
of the winger’s key priorities, perhaps the biggest one, so he knows that
whoever he plays for come August, he must play.
With Premier League football secured for the 2022/23
campaign, remaining at Elland Road will evidently be no barrier to
international involvement. All his caps have come as a Leeds United player and
even the individual and collective struggles faced by the 25-year-old as
relegation threatened to suck the Whites back into the second tier did nothing
to hamper his Seleção aspirations.
Brazil coach Tite saw enough from Raphinha, arguably Leeds’
best player for the majority of the season, to restore him to the line-up after
a March case of Covid-19 broke a five-game run of consecutive starts. He got
the nod against South Korea and again against Japan and, in between the
fixtures, he was put up for a press conference by the Brazilian Football
Confederation and admitted that the World Cup would be in his thinking this
summer.
Although he came off in the second half of both fixtures,
Raphinha underlined sufficiently his value to club, country and any admirers
who might want to prise him from Leeds’ hands.
The list of possible destinations is not a long one because,
along with a guaranteed playing time that must match what he gets as a star
player at Leeds, they must be both a Champions League club and deep enough of
pocket that they can pay upwards of at least £50m. Given his importance to
Leeds, that would feel like the very bottom end of what could be considered a
fair and reasonable price. When you consider that such a thing as ‘English tax’
exists in the Premier League buying and selling market, surely a Brazilian tax
could and should be applied when discussing terms for Raphinha?
What he’s actually worth in monetary terms was a question
too rich for Marcelo Bielsa, one he understood but not one he felt he could
answer. Instead he would wax lyrical about his winger’s attributes, almost all
of which were on display against Japan. Bielsa insisted that, as a player to
whom he could add little, Raphinha was essentially already beyond his teaching.
He did, however, desire to see the 2020 signing from Rennes ascend to the next
level and, to do that, Bielsa set him the challenge of making his team-mates
better.
It was a task which might well have been difficult for any
of the game’s greats, had they been in last season’s Leeds team such was the
adversity they encountered.
Whether or not he can improve his Brazil team-mates remains
to be seen and Neymar’s face would be a picture were it suggested that his
junior, less experienced wingman was going to make him play better, but what
Raphinha certainly does for the rest of Tite’s players is make the game easier
for them. The positions he takes up mean it rarely, if ever, requires a
world-class pass or elite vision to find him.
From the outset, he made himself a target against Japan.
Neymar had the option to find Raphinha in space in the box but instead
backheeled the ball through a compact backline to put Lucas Paquetá in on goal,
the Lyon attacker striking the post in the game’s first major chance.
From a starting position right out on the touchline,
Raphinha looked constantly to make out-to-in runs and linked up nicely with
Neymar in the build-up of an attack that Fred ended with a shot lashed over the
top.
It wasn’t an enthralling watch early on, but a niggly game,
played in torrential rain and lacking fluidity from both attacks, although
there were flashes of what Brazil can do and Raphinha was at the heart of it.
There was a nice through-ball that sent Neymar into the area
and then a big chance for the number 19 himself, on 19 minutes, haring in off
the touchline to take a Neymar pass before a slip as he shot gave Shūichi Gonda
little trouble.
One of the reasons he was so influential for Leeds last
season, accounting for huge proportions of their forward progression through
dribbles or passes, was not only that his team-mates trusted him with the ball
in all situations but because he is so good at making himself available and
finding space. Each time Neymar got on the ball, Raphinha was free and open.
Brazil increasingly focused their attacks down the right and
looked to the winger, who would come inside if the wide pass was ignored and
got involved in tight areas, looking after the ball well with one-touch
passing.
Early in the second half, he showcased his physical ability,
darting inside to press a centre-half and then spinning on his heel to get
after the full-back who was now in possession of the ball. The repeated sprints
seen so often at Elland Road put him in position to take advantage when an
error presented the ball on the touchline.
Just after the hour mark, Tite withdrew both Raphinha and
Vinícius Jr after Brazil had come close again. Casemiro looked up from his own
half and saw Neymar making a run that necessitated a wonderful through ball,
which he duly produced, although the PSG forward was then dispossessed in the
area before he could do any damage. It says so much about Raphinha that when
both Casemiro and Neymar lifted their heads, with the ball at their feet, the
Leeds man was there, calling for a pass.
Neymar is, undoubtedly, the main man for Brazil but Raphinha,
just eight months into his international career, is tucked in just below the
30-year-old global superstar with whom he shares set-piece duties and
significant responsibility for the creation of attacks and chances.
