Alert clubs to your player

Information and timing are everything when it comes to football transfers. 

Sometimes the two are not aligned at the same time, but by targeting potential buyers directly on TransferRoom, one can feed the other further down the line.

That was certainly the case for Club Necaxa and Sporting CP when it came to young Mexican defender Jesús Alcántar.

The Liga MX side knew they had a talent on their hands and that selling him to a European club would highlight the strong work being done in the academy.

So they used the Plus Pitch tool available to them on TransferRoom to alert as many as 30 clubs on the continent to the availability of Alcántar.

While the timing wasn’t quite right for Sporting, which initially dismissed that pitch, Alcántar’s subsequent performances for Mexico Under-20s at the Revelations Cup, an international tournament in the Americas, alerted the scouting departments of many European clubs.

Principal among them was the Portuguese club, which used the initial connection made with Club Necaxa on TransferRoom to learn more about the defender’s availability and financial demands, and strike a loan deal with an option to buy ahead of the summer 2022 window.

'They knew of him first through TransferRoom'

For Club Necaxa it represented an historic moment - the first time in its near 100-year history that a player had transferred to Europe - and perhaps the start of a regular pathway for their young talents to European clubs.

“We had Alcántar up in the TransferRoom system, so when the Sporting scouts went to watch him in a national team tournament it was easier because they already knew the player as they’d been pitched him on the platform,” says Club Necaxa Sporting Director, Santiago San Roman.

“Sporting knew Jesus Alcántar was a left-sided centre-back who had the skills and profile, because he is very tall and physically gifted, that could fit in Portugal and in Europe. They watched him in action and then it all became club to club negotiations. But they knew of him first through TransferRoom.”

He added: “He was the first in the history of the club [to move to Europe] and the club is about to accomplish 100 years. So it was a big moment for us.”

San Roman joined Club Necaxa in 2020 with a remit to reinvigorate the academy and provide talents for the first team that could then be sold abroad for a significant profit.

Connections made on the TransferRoom platform and in-person Summits are now making that a reality. 

He says: “One of our challenges and dreams was to export our players to Europe. We started with Alcántar, we hopefully will have the next one soon. Let’s dream and let’s think we can send a lot of them, and not only to Europe.”

Picture credit: Sporting CP