⚽It was 2010, and Lutz Pfannenstiel, a Hoffenheim scout, was doing what any football fan would do on a Sunday at home: playing Football Manager. Except he wasn’t looking for entertainment, he was looking for talent.
And there, among virtual statistics, appeared the name of an 18-year-old kid from Figueirense, Brazil’s second division: Roberto Firmino.
Pfannenstiel never saw him in a real match. He took a plane to Brazil, watched him in person for the first time during a training session, and convinced the German club to invest around 3 million dollars.
The entire city criticized the spending on an unknown from Brazil’s lower-tier football. But in four seasons, Firmino broke Hoffenheim’s all-time record with 153 matches and 49 goals.
In 2015, Jürgen Klopp and Liverpool bought him for more than 40 million euros, more than ten times what had been invested.
Firmino, the same boy who as a youngster sold coconut water in Maceió and who was deported from Spain for lacking papers before arriving in Europe, became a key piece of the best front three in the world alongside Salah and Mané. 🌟🇧🇷