At A Glance:
- After his retirement, Luis Boa Morte became a scout for Arsenal.
- He served as a scout for the club for two years between 2015 and 2017.
- In a recent interview, he claimed that Ruben Dias is one of four stars the club ignored on the back of his recommendations.
Luis Boa Morte first became accustomed to life at Arsenal as a player, joining from Sporting CP in the summer of 1997 and becoming a one-time Premier League champion, but he also returned in the capacity of scout.
In 2015, after almost two decades and subsequent playing spells at the likes of West Ham United, Fulham and Orlando Pirates, he returned to he a scout under the stewardship of Arsene Wenger.
Two years later, he left for pastures new: to become the manager of SU Sintrense and he’s since had stints as the assistant manager of Maccabi Haifa, Everton and Fuham.
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From England to Guinea-Bissau, Boa Morte has travelled all around the globe as part of his football coaching endeavours – but his most notable stint was as a scout for the Gunners. But which four players did he recommend?
The 4 players Arsenal ignored when recommended by Boa Morte
Having played for both Sporting and Arsenal during his career, the upcoming Champions League quarter-final tie will be watched closely by the 48-year-old, who recently sat down with A Bola for an interview.
Towards the end of the chat, he spoke about his post-retirement journey and that he hung up his boots at the right time.
Coaching the Fulham Under-14s was his first port of call as a coach – rather than a player – and that’s when he first interacted with Eberechi Eze, who joined the Gunners from Crystal Palace last summer.
“One of the players I coached was Eze from Arsenal; he was very small and shy. Years later, in a game against Crystal Palace, he came up to me at halftime and asked if I remembered him.”
At Under-19s level, he returned to Sporting. “Augusto Inácio was at Sporting and invited me to coach the under-19s. We came in second place. I coached Matheus Pereira, Rafael Barbosa, Ivanildo, and Bruno Wilson, for example.”
Then, it was time for a return to England – and he named four players (three of which have since played in the Premier League) that he recommended to Arsenal. His advice was, obviously, ignored.
“Then I returned to Arsenal as a scout for the Portuguese market,” he said before adding, “I recommended players like Pedro Neto, Ederson, Ruben Dias and Gedson Fernandes.”
By ignoring Boa Morte, Arsenal missed out on four decent players
Well… hindsight is a wonderful thing, isn’t it?
Pedro Neto currently plies his trade for Chelsea; Ederson is a six-time champion of England; Ruben Dias is a trusted figure under Pep Guardiola and Gedson Fernandes has recently secured a move to Spartak Moscow.
The latter is, perhaps, the only player that wouldn’t be of use to the Gunners – but the other three would provide plenty of value to Arteta and Co.
Especially Dias and Ederson, two players that you could argue are up there with the best in their positions over the past decade of action.
Before David Raya, Arsenal somewhat struggled in the goalkeeping department and Ederson would have been the answer to all their problems in between the sticks.
William Saliba and Gabriel Magalhaes have established themselves as the best central defensive partnership in world football, of course, but imagine adding Dias to the mix too!
