[eugene]

Pardon me for what to some will appear to be naivety on my part, but why would Paulista (Jundai) sell their best player, Ricardinho, to Internacional - the very team they will face next week in the return match of the Copa do Brasil.

Inter was hard pressed to pull out a 1-0 in Beira-Rio - the goal came on a penalty late in the second half. Paulista has already knocked out Serie teams like Botafogo from the Copa, so O Colorado has a big task on its hands.

I mean, and again pardon my naivety, wouldn't it have made sense for Paulista (or his empresarios) to hold on to Ricardinho as long as they remained alive in the Copa? Good for the club to advance in the Copa and the further they advanced, Ricardinho's re-sale value would have increased.

This is taking the news completely on face value and not engaging in any sort of conspiracy theory which would suggest that Internacional did a back room deal to bribe the cartolas of Paulista and/or the empressarios in order to purchase the best player of the team they are about the face in the CdoB? ;-)

Who wants to bet that Ricardinho will never be more than a marginal player for Inter and will quitely fade from the scene in due time???

 

[JCamilo]

Ricardinho problem is a bit more complicated, he was annoucead by Juventude a few weeks ago, so he would left Paulista anyways (and this negociation happened before Paulista got with the 1-0)...

So, the idea is probally this one: Ricardinho would stay with Paulista to be sold to be bigger club.
The "timeline" they expect was the Paulista, not the Copa do Brasil, so after the Paulista they are already finding him a new club.
It was a unexpected luck the advance of Paulista so far, so they did not had it planned.
Ricardinho will not (i am guessing here) play against Paulista because he probally already played for Paulista in the Copa do Brasil.
The agents of Ricardinho give a damn to Paulista. They settled a better contract with a bigger team. Will Ricardinho fade ? Irrelevant, he will be paid more, meaning the agents probally receive more. (They probally get a extra bonus each new contract, so you see agents love to make players change clubs a lot, so they do not care if he will be a hit or not)...And who knows...He may have his big chance now, Inter is being highly rated by the media, so he is is risking but the reward can be big...