Why Brazilian forward could be worth a shot for a Premier League side

The Brazilian striker has shown he can do it on the international stage with his Confederations Cup performance, but will it earn him a club move this summer?

Federico Chaves Guedes – AKA Fred – has spent a large amount of his footballing career applying his trade in his native country of Brazil, with a slight stint in France and to his credit. He has brought goals to whatever team he has played for, but arguably not the amount he could bring. 

His club career started in 1988 with America Minerio and was promoted to the first team in 2004 where he scored the fastest goal in professional football history after 3.17 seconds against Villa Nova (no, not Tito) and scored a total of nine goals in twenty nine appearances before leaving halfway through the season in 2004 to join rivals Cruzeiro. He would play more games for the Brazilian team and subsequently score more goals, twenty four in fourty three to be precise.

This fortunately attracted the attention of the European clubs and was snapped up by Lyon in 2005 and as well as being top goal-scorer in his debut season, also won the Ligue 1 title with Lyon, but with the arrival of Milan Baros and Karim Benzema emerging through as a big talent, Fred became disillusioned with life in France before moving back to Brazil with his current team, Fluminense, he did score thirty four times in eighty seven appearances for Lyon, but with a large amount being substitutions or coming off early, it probably isn’t is reflective of what it could of been. 

Now Fred is the star striker at Fluminese back in Brazil and has scored 59 times in 87 appearances since 2009 and with his nifty performances of late with the national team, he could be back in the shop window to the European teams with the Mirror reporting Manchester City are chasing him, if he does want first team football consistently I think he could do a lot better than the blue half of Manchester.

I think Fred has got 50% of the game completed, the side of finishing he has clearly got to a fine art never changes, it’s just the amount of opportunities and the pressure that comes with the missed shots. He reminds me of a Brazilian Rickie Lambert, if you must, and could perhaps be worth a punt for a side in aiming for a top eight finish in the English topflight.