Ramos has signed a contract with Cristiano's former agent. Still, going to Manchester United?
Portugal striker Goncalo Ramos is one of the significant discoveries of the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. The finest hour of the 21-year-old striker came in the 1/8 final match with Switzerland (6:1), in which he scored a hat-trick. Fernando Santos, who coached the Portuguese at the tournament, took the risk of leaving Cristiano Ronaldo in reserve, releasing Ramos at the start - and did not lose. The world media immediately dubbed Goncalo the "heir" of the main star of Portugal, and top clubs expressed interest in acquiring a young striker. How are things going with Ramush after the breakthrough World Cup?
The Benfica forward, who joined the club's academy at the age of 11 and has been playing at the base since 2020, has long been on the shortlists of European teams. Goncalu made himself known to the general public in the 2022/2023 season. After the departure of the Portuguese club Darwin Nunez to Liverpool, Ramos became the central striker of Benfica.
Goncalo scored 13 goals and provided one assist in 22 games. The progress was noticed by Fernando Santos, who invited the young striker to the national team. On November 17, Ramos made his debut for Portugal in a friendly match against Saudi Arabia (4:0). He appeared on the field in the 67th minute, scored a goal, and made an assist in the remaining time. At the World Cup in Qatar, the 21-year-old striker was given almost no chance to prove himself - in the games with Ghana and Uruguay, he received two and eight minutes, respectively, and remained on the bench in the meeting with South Korea. But with Switzerland, Ramos showed himself to the whole planet, scoring three goals.
Goncalo, nicknamed the Magician, became the youngest (21 years and 169 days) football player in the World Cup since 1962 to score a hat-trick in the tournament. Previously, only the Hungarian Florian Albert managed to do this (20 years, 261 days, 1/4 finals of the 1962 World Cup with Bulgaria). In the quarter-finals with Morocco, Ramos did not score with practical actions, but this did not reduce the interest of European giants in him. It's funny, but the former club of Ronaldo - Manchester United, expressed the first desire to acquire a football player. The English team is considering Ramos as an attack booster in the summer of 2023. But Benfica, which has learned to negotiate tough with Premier League teams (as in the case of Chelsea and Enzo Fernandez), will not let the player go for less than € 120 million. The figure is written in the striker's contract with the club as compensation. So Manchester United will have to spend a lot to get a talented Portuguese.
A potential deal could also be helped by Ramos' new agent, Jorge Mendes. According to AS, the football player and the functionary signed a contract in January 2023. Another crossover with Cristiano: Mendes worked with him throughout his career but parted ways after the departure of the 38-year-old striker from Manchester United. The agent has decided to work with Ramos, who is set to replace Ronaldo both in the Portuguese national team and, probably, in Manchester. In 2019, Goncalo was interested in Bayern, but the negotiations still needed progress. That season, Ramos won the European Under-19 Championship Golden Boot, becoming the tournament's top scorer with four goals.
So his talent is beyond doubt: the German giant will only consider a player with potential.
"Gonzalo deserves everything that happens to him; it was just a matter of opportunity. At Benfica, when we gave him opportunities in the youth team, he always took advantage of them. He loves to compete, and Goncalo is a born hard worker. Ramos is a very modest person, but I am sure he is the same as before the latest events," said coach Renato Paiva, who worked with the striker in the Benfica youth system.
After the World Cup, several stories happened to Ramush. A few days after losing the quarter-finals with Morocco, a video of an intimate nature with a 21-year-old striker got on the Internet. Some Portuguese media reported that the football player sent this video to a woman who "leaked" it to the Internet.
The video went viral in just a few hours and topped Portugal's social media trends. But this story did not hit Ramos: a week after the World Cup, he entered the Portuguese League Cup with Moreirense with Benfica and scored a goal. This was followed by a three-match "drought," culminating in an essential double in the derby with Sporting (2: 2) in the Portuguese championship. Ramos twice helped his club bounce back and score a vital point in the fight for gold medals.
An unpleasant episode happened to Goncalo on January 26 in the 20th round of the Portuguese Championship match with Pacos de Ferreira: the forward suffered a muscle injury at the beginning of the second half. Ramos has already missed two games, but Eagles coach Roger Schmidt assured that the striker would be ready for the League Cup match with Braga (February 9) and the first Champions League play-off meeting with Brugge (February 15). So the top clubs and the public will once again be able to appreciate the talent of Ramush on the big stage.
07.02.2023