Melbourne Signs Brazilian Duo

Melbourne Victory’s undercover operation in Brazil codenamed “Striker Alert” has unearthed two jewels with news strikers Fred and Claudinho have signed for the club. Only time will tell how precious these jewels are but for now Melbourne fans can get excited about the prospect of two Brazilians scoring beautiful goals next season.

26 year old Helbert Frederico Carreiro da Silva (Fred) was signed from Guarini in the Campeonato Mineiro, a Brazilian State Championship League. Campeonato Mineiro is considered a weak league by many but it has been known to produce some exceptional individual talent. Ronaldo and Tostão made their professional soccer debuts in this league. Tournaments in this league run for 3 to 4 months. In the latest tournament Fred was voted 4th best player after becoming the equal second top goal scorer. Before Guarini, Fred spent 10 seasons at leading Brazilian side America MG where he played alongside Arsenal star Giberto Silva, scoring 20 goals in 80 appearances. Melbourne Victory claim to have beaten Atletico Mineiro and Brazilian giants Cruzeiro to his signature. These two clubs are the biggest clubs in the Campeonato Mineiro.

24 year old Claudinho was signed from leading Brazilian team Atletico Paranaense who are currently 13th in the Brazilian Championship. The left footed striker appears to be the better of the Brazilian duo as he was playing at a higher level than Fred. Claudinho scored 30 goals in the State and National Brazilian leagues in approximately 100 appearances. Before plying his trade in Brazil, Claudinho had a short stint in France with Strasbourg as a junior.

Melbourne coach Ernie Merrick was especially pleased with the signings and the return of Archie Thompson.

“It’s almost an embarrassment of riches for us in the forward line at the moment,” Merrick said. “We’ve designed our recruitment strategy hoping Archie would return, but the news today that he will definitely be with us next season is a real bonus.”

After the recent signings Melbourne has four more positions available in its squad. Merrick has identified a quality left back and a central midfielder as the next players on his shopping list.

“We can now focus our energies into securing the services of a high-quality left back and central midfield player to provide the overall strength and depth we’ll need to challenge for the Hyundai A-League title.” Merrick said.

With attack being Melbourne’s weakness last season it looks as if Merrick is keen to put together a team that will focus on attacking. It is doubtful Merrick will play a straight forward 4-4-2 formation with an abundance of strikers in his squad. Two Brazilians are not coming all the way to Melbourne to sit on the bench and Thompson is a walk up starter. Merrick might play Fred as the striker in the middle with Thompson on his right and Claudinho on his left. This would leave a midfield of three with Steve Pantelidis most likely occupying the holding midfield position. Michael Ferrante, Kristian Sarkies, Vince Lia and new signing Adrian Caceres will be fighting each other over the remaining two positions. Whatever the formation is Merrick finally has some flexibility and depth in the attack. The defence will be similar to last season with Muscat, Piorkowski, Byrnes, Claeys, Ljeir and Storey sharing the duties.

The Soccer Squirrel would like to see more width added to the squad. Caceres is a very good prospect who can operate on the left wing. However one of Melbourne’s problems last season was when Sarkies played on the right he was prone to drifting inside too often. So whilst you are out shopping for players Ernie add a flying right winger to the list.

Merrick experimented with numerous positional changes in Melbourne’s first pre-season friendly against Richmond Eagles last week. Melbourne recorded a victory on the night with Vince Lia scoring the only goal of the game.