Matching club needs to put talents in shop window

James Rodríguez, Juan Fernando Quintero and Jhon Durán: Two of Colombia’s greatest players in a generation and a rising star who moved to Premier League club Aston Villa at the age of 19. They all earned big-money moves to Europe and all came from the academy at Envigado FC, a club only founded in 1989.

But a team with one of most productive academies in South America weren't able to make lucrative player sales for the trio directly to Europe, have instead been restricted to doing business with a local, existing network of clubs predominantly in Latin America, while relying on future sell-on fees for all-important transfer revenue. 

2014 FIFA World Cup hero Rodriguez was sold to Argentina's CA Banfield when he was 17, before moving to FC Porto, AS Monaco and Real Madrid for a combined total of €120m. Quintero, transferred to Atletico Nacional at 19 and went on to join Porto, while Envigado sold Durán to Major League Soccer's Chicago Fire for €1.7m before Villa paid €17m 12 months later.

Envigado also lacked the real-time data and knowledge, what clubs are looking for and when in order to pitch players to suit buyers’ needs, relying on intermediaries for transfer market intelligence. 

But that has all changed now they are members of TransferRoom.

Direct access to decision makers at more than 650 clubs, as well as instant notifications when clubs worldwide share requirements matching to the profile of one of their players, means Envigado never miss a sales opportunity.

“TransferRoom is a very important platform, especially for a club like Envigado, with a low budget but a very high production level of young talent to feed the market in line with what the clubs need,” President Ramiro Ruiz says in the video above.

“It gives us the opportunity to open new markets that we didn’t know about, to give visibility to Envigado, and to understand the sporting culture in each country, since some of them don’t have a big history on the transfer market.

“They have huge potential and if we identify the profile of players they are looking for, we can work internally to develop player and move to those markets more easily.”

Watch the above video to uncover which markets Envigado are targeting on TransferRoom, as well the added benefits Ruiz and Sporting Director Manuel Valero found from attending a TransferRoom Summit along with over 300 other decision-makers.