Napoli president Aurelio De Laurentiis has announced the club have signed Universidad de Chile star Eduardo Vargas.

The details of the deal have not been revealed by either side, but reports suggest the Serie A outfit paid a fee in the region of €13.5 million to land the Copa Sudamericana top goalscorer.

The 22-year-old, who had been linked with Inter and Chelsea, forced his way into the Chile national team after some impressive performances, making six appearances under coach Claudio Borghi in 2011.


http://www.goal.com/en/news/11/transfer-zone/2011/12/23/2815804/napoli-announce-signing-of-universidad-de-chiles-eduardo

so not only did chelsea not sign him but he is going to try and dent their cl ambitions now !!! wow

I havent seen him play but signing for 13.5 m from South America ,i reckon he must be pretty good.

So you saying Chelsea is in trouble now?

What is it with Chileans producing great talent for pretty much their first time in history? Harhar wanna clue us in?

Tim Vickery made a talent scout on him in world soccer magazine January 2012 issue if haven't read yet and want to more about him
just saying

Who does this guy play like? Is he compared to what player...Alexis Sanchez or some one like that?

looks really old school AM from what ive seen...movements wise that is.

windkick wrote:Who does this guy play like? Is he compared to what player...Alexis Sanchez or some one like that?

I read, less technical but more direct version of Sanchez.

But im always suspect about comparisons to other players.

Yea judging from the clip he looks too be pretty good. He should fit in nicely at Napoli

BarrileteCosmico wrote:What is it with Chileans producing great talent for pretty much their first time in history? Harhar wanna clue us in?

It's the Bielsa effect

St_Nick09_of_Goal wrote:

BarrileteCosmico wrote:What is it with Chileans producing great talent for pretty much their first time in history? Harhar wanna clue us in?

It's the Bielsa effect

Are we really going to attribute Chile producing great players to Bielsa? My, what a team Bilbao will have in 4 years then

St_Nick09_of_Goal wrote:

BarrileteCosmico wrote:What is it with Chileans producing great talent for pretty much their first time in history? Harhar wanna clue us in?

It's the Bielsa effect

Seriously, I do read he has had an impact. His style (high pressing, fast, dynamic yet technical) is being adopted more and more it seems.

"The club of the moment? Universidad de Chile: sweeping up trophies in their domestic league, unbeaten in 35 games, and this week crowned Copa Sudamericana champions, their first ever continental title.

More interesting than their success has been their style of play. Coming 18 months after Marcelo Bielsa took Chile to the World Cup having played dynamic, quick football with heavy pressing, usually in a 3-3-1-3 formation, his fellow Argentine Jorge Sampaoli is doing something similar.

“Their style of play is an indication that Marcelo Bielsa planted some interesting seeds in Chilean football,” says Tim Vickery. “Sampaoli is a Bielsa disciple.” According to Gabriele Marcotti in The Times, Sampaoli is “at the training ground by half past 8 and doesn’t leave before 9 at night. And, when he does go home, he sits in bed watching (football) DVDs and doing video analysis on his computer”, reminiscent of Bielsa’s habit of living in a room at the Chilean FA’s headquarters away from his family and compiling video databases of his players and opponents.

The basic Bielsa template is apparent. Sampaoli uses three at the back and his side attack very directly, with various players making forward runs towards goal and plenty ending up in the penalty area.

There are significant differences between Bielsa’s Chile and Sampaoli’s Universidad de Chile, however. Sampaoli seems more pragmatic than Bielsa. Although Bielsa would switch between a back three and a back four depending upon the opponent’s formation and always maintain his ‘un enganche y tres puntas’ upfront, Sampaoli changes formation more. Reviewing his recent formations (mainly courtesy of Joel Sked’s excellent site about Chilean football) shows how much variation there is. "

BarrileteCosmico wrote:

St_Nick09_of_Goal wrote:

BarrileteCosmico wrote:What is it with Chileans producing great talent for pretty much their first time in history? Harhar wanna clue us in?

It's the Bielsa effect

Are we really going to attribute Chile producing great players to Bielsa? My, what a team Bilbao will have in 4 years then

Bielsa changed Chile's philosophy the way Cruyff did Barca's

hes a SS type of player,i guess he can play on the wings.Ive seen him in the past sudamericana,the guy is a beast

Very direct. Reminds me of a less technical version of Aguero.

Is Vargas better than Nerman?

The Franchise wrote:

St_Nick09_of_Goal wrote:

BarrileteCosmico wrote:What is it with Chileans producing great talent for pretty much their first time in history? Harhar wanna clue us in?

It's the Bielsa effect

Seriously, I do read he has had an impact. His style (high pressing, fast, dynamic yet technical) is being adopted more and more it seems.

"The club of the moment? Universidad de Chile: sweeping up trophies in their domestic league, unbeaten in 35 games, and this week crowned Copa Sudamericana champions, their first ever continental title.

More interesting than their success has been their style of play. Coming 18 months after Marcelo Bielsa took Chile to the World Cup having played dynamic, quick football with heavy pressing, usually in a 3-3-1-3 formation, his fellow Argentine Jorge Sampaoli is doing something similar.

“Their style of play is an indication that Marcelo Bielsa planted some interesting seeds in Chilean football,” says Tim Vickery. “Sampaoli is a Bielsa disciple.” According to Gabriele Marcotti in The Times, Sampaoli is “at the training ground by half past 8 and doesn’t leave before 9 at night. And, when he does go home, he sits in bed watching (football) DVDs and doing video analysis on his computer”, reminiscent of Bielsa’s habit of living in a room at the Chilean FA’s headquarters away from his family and compiling video databases of his players and opponents.

The basic Bielsa template is apparent. Sampaoli uses three at the back and his side attack very directly, with various players making forward runs towards goal and plenty ending up in the penalty area.

There are significant differences between Bielsa’s Chile and Sampaoli’s Universidad de Chile, however. Sampaoli seems more pragmatic than Bielsa. Although Bielsa would switch between a back three and a back four depending upon the opponent’s formation and always maintain his ‘un enganche y tres puntas’ upfront, Sampaoli changes formation more. Reviewing his recent formations (mainly courtesy of Joel Sked’s excellent site about Chilean football) shows how much variation there is. "

I remember reading this piece. Seriously, Bielsa must be the biggest gem of a coach out there

tbh most of these new wave of Chilean talents are very direct players.

It's one thing to claim that Bielsa has had an impact in Chile's tactics, and that he has had a positive influence on the players he has worked with, but to claim that Chile's current run of good-to-great players is his contribution is an exaggeration. There must be something structural at work to make Chile start producing talents like this, they are traditionally one of the weakest teams in South America: they only have 1 libertadores to their name, they've never won a Copa America, and the last five world cups they played in have been 2010, 1998, 1982, 1974, and 1966 (granted they were banned from 1990 and 94, but this hardly shows consistency). Lately though, they are producing players like Sanchez, Isla, Vidal, Gary Medel, Vargas, etc. Not all are great, but considerably better than they've had in the past.

Also, for Bielsa lovers, 5 good anecdotes:

http://www.canchallena.com/1434208-las-cinco-mejores-anecdotas-de-bielsa

St_Nick09_of_Goal wrote:Is Vargas better than Nerman?

not libertadores proven

BarrileteCosmico wrote:It's one thing to claim that Bielsa has had an impact in Chile's tactics, and that he has had a positive influence on the players he has worked with, but to claim that Chile's current run of good-to-great players is his contribution is an exaggeration. There must be something structural at work to make Chile start producing talents like this, they are traditionally one of the weakest teams in South America: they only have 1 libertadores to their name, they've never won a Copa America, and the last five world cups they played in have been 2010, 1998, 1982, 1974, and 1966 (granted they were banned from 1990 and 94, but this hardly shows consistency). Lately though, they are producing players like Sanchez, Isla, Vidal, Gary Medel, Vargas, etc. Not all are great, but considerably better than they've had in the past.

No question thats true, but the style of play is clearly impacting the type of play that is coming out. Your right though, talent production is different, not Bielsa´s doing of course.

I would say though, as good as this current crop are none are as good as Salas was and Zamerano was no bum either.