Watford FC struck gold by beating Liverpool to star now worth £30m: View
Watford have had their fair share of successful strikers over recent years and one particular Brazilian youngster proved to be a masterstroke of a signing back in 2018.
The Hornets’ extensive scouting has led to numerous unproven forwards in English football being signed and going on to become hits at Vicarage Road in the modern era, such as Odion Ighalo, Matej Vydra, and Emmanuel Dennis, but the 2018 acquisition of Joao Pedro will be one that they look back on with fondness for a multitude of reasons.
Pedro was sold on by boyhood club Fluminense before he had even made his senior debut, after they agreed a deal with Watford in October 2018 for the then-17-year-old to join the Hertfordshire club in January 2020.
He soon started to bag consistently for the Brazilian Serie A side, and so the deal with the Hornets looked to have hit a snag after Premier League giants Liverpool and Manchester United were reported to be interested in his signature in 2019, but their interest never materialised to a transfer advance.
Pedro instead did join Watford, and the rest was history as he became one of their key players over the next three years before being sold on for a sizeable profit to Brighton & Hove Albion last summer.
Watford beat Liverpool and Manchester United to Joao Pedro
The Hornets had seemingly stolen a march on any competitors for Pedro’s signature in 2018, when they announced that he had agreed to join the club from January 2020 on a five-year deal worth an apparent initial £2m, but they still had to fight off interest from bigger clubs prior to his contract with Fluminense running out.
The Daily Mail reported in May 2019 that Liverpool had made enquiries over signing the teenager after their scouts had watched him score a hat-trick for Fluminense in a 4-1 win over Atletico Nacional, while Manchester United had also done the same.
The catch there, though, was that a clause in his contract said that should the planned move to Watford falter, then the Vicarage Road side must be paid £20 million by the rival club, so Liverpool or United in this case.
That meant that, while they each may well have been seriously interested in his signature, Watford’s planning ahead proved to be a stroke of genius, as they were never likely to pay a fee to another English club, and especially one that dwarfed the initial asking price for his services.
Watford got more than their money’s worth with Pedro
Watford will have been pleased that they got to sign Pedro ahead of some big competition and their decision to sign him was definitely justified over the next few seasons.
He initially struggled to get to grips with life in the Premier League in 2019/20, with the COVID pandemic putting his debut on hold until June and Watford then relegated back to the Championship a month later, but the second tier proved to be a blessing in disguise to his Hornets career.
Pedro bagged his first goal for the club in a key clash against Luton Town on his 19th birthday in October 2020, and went on to register nine goals and four assists in 40 appearances that season as they were promoted back to the top-flight in second place under Xisco Munoz.
He scored some big goals in the top-flight in 2021/22, including against Manchester United and Newcastle United, but was unable to help the Hornets avoid relegation again that year, and surprisingly stayed at Vicarage Road amid interest from the likes of Everton and Newcastle.
2022/23 saw him register the most prolific season of his career up to that point, with 11 goals and four assists in 35 league games, and he captained the club on numerous occasions throughout the campaign as they struggled to mount a challenge for promotion and eventually finished 11th in the second-tier, meaning an exit was likely.
