Chelsea beat PSG to Vasco de Gama teenage prospect Andrey Santos — reports

According to a couple reports in the last 24-48 hours, Chelsea have beaten out Paris Saint-Germain to the signing of 18-year-old midfielder Andrey Santos from Vasco de Gama. This was an “exclusive” reported yesterday by Le 10 Sport in France — not the greatest source! — with Nizaar Kinsella in the Evening Standard running the story today as well.

Vasco are an historic Rio de Janeiro-based Brazilian club who have fallen on harder financial (and thus competitive) times over the last decade, suffering relegation into the second division a couple times as well. They did earn promotion back to the top tier for this season, finishing third in the Série B, and young Andrey Santos played a key role in that with 8 goals in 33 appearances from central midfield, playing in a classic box-to-box No.8 role. He’s got good size, physicality, work rate, and all the requisite skills necessary, though obviously he’s still quite young and raw. He’s represented Brazil multiple times at youth international levels.

The reports claim that Chelsea will be paying €15m (£12m) to make this transfer happen, a sum that will certainly help Vasco’s balance books while also continuing our recent habit of spending big on the talents of tomorrow.