Darwin Núñez transfer to Liverpool highlights attacking talent in Portugal’s Primeira Liga

The secret is out. Portugal’s Primeira Liga is where Europe’s top clubs are turning for some of the continent’s top attacking talent.

At least the cash-rich ones of the English Premier League are doing so.

Last week, Liverpool signed Uruguayan forward Darwin Núñez from Benfica for an up-front fee of $79 million, with potentially another $26 million in add-ons if certain requirements are met.

The move makes Núñez the second most expensive transfer ever in Portuguese football, after the $132 million paid by Atlético Madrid to the Lisbon club for João Félix in 2019. It will likely end up being the biggest investment in Liverpool’s history too, surpassing the $88 million Jurgen Klopp spent on Dutch defender Virgil van Dijk.

While the fee cannot be called a bargain, yet, it has been hailed as another smart piece of business by Liverpool’s transfer committee, especially for a player who is only 23, and who until the start of last season was not on the radar of Europe’s top clubs.

Signings from Portugal have excelled in the Premier League in recent times.

For example, Bruno Fernandez has arguably been Manchester United’s best signing, having joined from Sporting CP for $58 million, at the time a record fee paid to a Portuguese club.

And only on Tuesday night, Fabio Vieira’s $42 million move to Arsenal from Porto was confirmed.

Between July 2017 and January 2022, $1.76 billion poured into the coffers of Portuguese clubs, for profit of almost $1.2 billion after these teams invested $555 million in player transfers, according to a study by CIES Football Observatory.

Portuguese football thus had the highest five-year profit margin among the 40 countries analyzed, ahead of Brazil ($1.07 billion), the Netherlands ($780