Mendes: many predicted Bernardo would fail, and Benfica signed Felix as a courtesy

Unexpected tales

Jorge Mendes, the famous players' agent, has revealed the difficulties he faced during his career in convincing clubs to sign a number of talents who later became among the most prominent stars of world football, chief among them Bernardo Silva and Joao Felix. Plenty of people, he insists, simply didn't believe in these players in their early days.

Speaking at the "Leaders in Football" forum, part of the Executive MBA in Football programme organised by the Católica Porto Business School in cooperation with the Portuguese League, Mendes went behind the scenes on his efforts to build the careers of several players, with Silva and Felix front and centre.

Mendes said: "There is the example of Bernardo Silva. I was told several times: Jorge, forget it, you have no chance, Bernardo Silva will never become an important player, and all he can achieve is playing in the first or second division, perhaps with a team like Pacos de Ferreira."

He added: "Everything is very relative, and it becomes even more complicated when it comes to players in youth teams, because there are clubs that give priority to players who are physically stronger. Everyone rejected the idea, and when he moved to Monaco the club did not want to keep him after his first year, and I had to convince the president."

He continued: "He was a player who relied on possession of the ball, and not the type who runs everywhere, which is why he also moved to Manchester City, which was the right team for him. After that it became clear that we were looking at one of the best players in the history of Portuguese football."

Joao Felix offered another case in point. The current Al-Nassr man had striking talent, yet his move to Benfica came about, in Mendes' words, almost out of courtesy.

He said: "Joao Felix, for example, when he was at Porto, he was a player... most of the players whose transfers I oversaw over the past years, and when I say most of them I mean it literally, perhaps more than 80 per cent of them, were not the most prominent players at their clubs. And Joao Felix is an example of that."

He explained: "He was at Porto, and at the same time Benfica showed interest in his brother and signed him. His father was naturally worried, because Joao was at Porto while his brother moved to Benfica, and so the club signed Joao Felix almost out of courtesy."

Barcelona drew praise from the Portuguese agent for the way they run their youth sector. "The club signs one, two or three players from the reserve team every year," he said. "And when we talk about Barcelona, we are talking about one of the best clubs in the world. We can see the players who currently feature with the first team, and many of them graduated from the club's academy."

Too much talent slips through the net, Mendes warned, simply because the right chance never comes. "There is a lot of talent that is wasted, because the talent really exists, and we can find very talented players in the third division, just as we can find very talented players in the second division. The problem is that they often do not find anyone to give them the opportunity."