Deco (2008-2010)

Deco (2008-2010)

Written by Loz and updated October 2010

On June 30th, 2008 Chelsea announced an £8m deal to bring Portuguese playmaker Deco to the Bridge from Spanish pub team Barcelona. Deco was everything G4 wanted in a man other than tall. In fact he was one of those players that G4 plucked from obscurity by highlighting him as the next great thing – quite remarkable football insight by our top forum scout – after all Deco had only won the Champions league and moved to Barcelona for a multi million pound fee. How does G4 spot these unpolished diamonds?

However, I am putting the cart before the horse here and unless your cart has an internal combustion engine that is never a wise move

Although now a master of the Portuguese art of falling over in open fields Deco was actually born in Brazil, Sao Bernado do Campo to be exact (it is no coincidence that this is Portuguese for ‘St Bernard of the Field’ – it is there that the open field tactic was invented whilst imitating a Monty Python sketch about ‘not being seen’). By all accounts it is a fascinating place, it has geography, history and cars – truly unique. On August 27th, 1977, whilst all this was going on, a little boy was born and was christened Anderson Luis de Souza. We know him as Deco, which will make chants easier to come by. It was actually a name given to him by an Uncle and means ‘mumbler’ – they say blood is thicker than water and I think it is safe to say that on this occasion this blood truly was thick.

His football career started with Nacional in Sao Paulo but his time there was short lived once scouts from Brazil’s second largest club (at least from a fan base perspective) Corinthians saw him whilst stopping over at Nacional for a snack. In 1996 he moved to the Brazilian giants who gave him a few games but decided he was too little to be a giant so told him to pack his rucksack and move onto Corinthians Alagoano who are some sort of financially supported feeder team for the main Corinthians team (although entirely in keeping with the rules of FIFA of course – lawyers stand down).

In 1997 Alagoano went into some sort of partnership with Portuguese side Benfica and it was this deal that saw the 19 year old Deco move to Portugal. Benfica sent him out on loan to a club called Alverca who were then playing in the Portuguese second division (and have now folded) for the 1997/98 season. Deco had a decent season for them playing 32 times and scoring 13 goals in the process. It looked at that point like he would be kept on at Benfica however the Benfica manager at that time decided he looked like a player who would never make the grade. An amusing thing to look back on, made hilarious by the fact that manager was Graeme Souness.

Deco was growing now so this time he packed two rucksacks and moved to Salgueiros for the 1998/99 season. In the first half of that season he impressed enough to secure a move to Porto during the winter transfer window. Porto, at that stage, were managed by Fernando Santos who was Deco’s manager for three seasons until Santos left for AEK Athens and was replaced by Octavio Machado in 2002. Machado had an assistant at that point and it was this assistant who took responsibility for Deco. He was none other than the ‘Enemy of Football’ Jose Mourinho who was to later go on to manage Inter Milan.

It won’t surprise anyone that Jose took this attack minded playmaker and said ‘Defend or Die’ (or words to that effect) and moulded him into a central midfielder more focused on preventing goals than creating them. However it can’t be argued that Jose turned him into one of the most gifted central midfielders in Portugal.

When Machado was promptly replaced by Jose, Deco became instrumental in a Porto side that won consecutive domestic titles in 2002/03 and 2003/04, the UEFA Cup in 2002/03 (where they beat Celtic on the silver goal rule and Deco’s ability to fall over at the slightest contact was probably first witnessed at its very worst by British football fans) and then the Champions League in 2003/04 where Deco got Porto’s second goal in a comfortable 3-0 win over Monaco. In that Champions League run he was voted both midfielder and player of the tournament.

It was during this period of his career that Deco was called up for his international debut with Portugal. He had never been seriously considered by the Brazilian management and his Portuguese passport was fast tracked under a clause in the law that allows citizenship for people capable of "performing relevant services" to the country. It wasn’t a universally popular decision and there was much public argument about whether he should be selected (including from the likes of Portuguese captain Figo and Rui Costa who were opposed to his selection). All that was quickly forgotten when, with eight minutes to go, he came on and promptly scored the winner from a free kick against Brazil on March 29th. 2003. This was Portugal’s first win over Brazil for 37 years. The man that gave him that debut? Felipe Scolari

Funnily enough it was also Scolari who hadn’t picked him for Brazil as he thought he has other, better options, at his disposal. Hard to argue with that given that Brazil won the 2002 World Cup! In the build up to the game against Brazil Scolari, in a direct reference to Figo and Costa said "Who does not want to play with Deco need not turn up"

By now Deco’s stock was as high as Mutu on a Colombian holiday and it looked like his days at Porto were numbered, especially as Mourinho had now taken over at Chelsea and Deco was one of the first people tipped to follow him. As well as Chelsea there was strong interest from Bayern Munich and Barcelona and, unlike Porto team mates Ferriera and Carvalho who did join Chelsea, Deco chose to move to the Nou Camp in July 2004. Frank Rijkaard took advantage of the defensive qualities Mourinho had installed in Deco and managed to fit him into a team that was already overflowing with attack minded midfielders.

He became an integral part of a Barcelona side that won La Liga in the 2004/05 season and was once again voted as the best midfielder in the Champions League when Barcelona won it in 2006/07.

Deco was a key member of the Portugal squad for the 2006 World Cup held in Germany. He scored once in the group stages against Iran but missed out on Portugal’s penalty kick win over England in the quarter final due to being sent off somewhat harshly in the infamous first round knockout match against Holland in which both teams finished with only nine men on the field. He returned for the semi final against France where Portugal were beaten by a Zidane penalty.

Back in Spain Real Madrid began to re-establish themselves as the league’s best side as Barcelona began a fall from grace in the 2007/08 season. Injuries to Deco restricted him to only a small number of appearances and by the end of the season Barcelona were looking at a major team overhaul.

Manager Rijkaard was replaced and the likes of Deco, Ronaldinho and Eto’o were named as surplus to requirements. With Chelsea appointing Felipe Scolari, Deco’s international manager, as their new manager midway through Portugal’s Euro 2008 campaign it was no great surprise when Deco was once again linked with a move to Stamford Bridge. In Euro 2008 Deco impressed greatly for Portugal and shot down a lot of claims that he was looking like a player in demise.

This time the transfer to SW6 was to happen. As a transfer it was received with mixed response from the Chelsea fans. Some welcomed the arrival of a player with undeniable ability, and, most significantly the ability to move the ball swiftly from defence to attack without pondering. However others were concerned about the fact we had bought a player the wrong side of 30 who will potentially be just as guilty as Drogba at falling on the floor the moment an opponent breathes out.

Deco impressed in pre-season albeit largely against sides that would have struggled to keep a clean sheet against a subbuteo team. He made his competitive debut in Chelsea’s opening league game at home against Pompey and excelled in a comfortable 4-0 win capping the display by scoring the pick of the goals, a swerving effort from 25 yards that crashed into David James top left hand corner. In the very next match away at Wigan Deco started where he left off by opening the scoring in the 4th minute with a stunning 25 yard free kick – the Chelsea fans sang ‘There’s Only One Deco’ and we denied the ding dong Deco had with JT when Chelsea played Barcelona in the Champions League had ever happened!

Against Manchester United at the Bridge on September 21st Deco picked up an injury in the pre-match warm up and was kept out of action until mid October when he returned against Middlesbrough in the away premiership fixture.

When Deco returned he was a shadow of the player who had impressed in the opening league fixtures and it is arguable whether he maintained his first team place due to the injuries to Essien and Ballack or because of a tad of favouritism by Scolari. His general performances were far from poor but too frequently he would spoil a good performance with a few slack passes, or unnecessary and elaborate flicks, some of which gifted possession in potentially dangerous areas.

Deco’s season went from bad to worse when Chelsea sacked Scolari (in an interview in June interview, Deco stated: "I do not want to stay. I have not liked my experience at Chelsea."and he was also critical of the Scolari sacking saying he had not been given enough time.

All indications were that Deco would be sold in the summer of 2009 and when Jose Mourinho expressed a desire to take him to Inter Milan Deco openly welcomed the interest. Inter quickly dropped their interest when Chelsea named their prize (they wanted both Deco and Carvalho on the cheap) and Deco then expressed a willingness to finish his career at Stamford Bridge.

The 2009/10 season started with Deco on the bench in the Community Shield but Ancelotti’s willingness to adopt a rotation policy meant Deco started the league game against Sunderland, a game in which he excelled at the tip of the diamond and scored a beauty of a goal to put Chelsea 3-1 up.

Deco’s form carried on throughout the first half of the season and there were some signs that he still had a lot to offer the first team. However a series of injuries were to hamper him and he missed a number of games over the festive period before returning to regular first team action in January. Further injury then ruled him out of most of February however he returned to play regularly during the latter stages of the season including starting in the key match away at Old Trafford which we won 2-1.

At the end of the season Chelsea announced that Deco would be allowed to leave on a free transfer and he signed a two year contract with Brazilian club Fluminese (where he would be joined by Juliano Belletti)