Danny Alves: The €30m Man

By: chris | August 25th, 2008

UEFA Cup champs Zenit St. Petersburg just made the single biggest splash of the summer transfer window by putting down an insane €30m for one Danny Alves, also making him the first player to break the €30m mark this summer. I know what you’re thinking: who the hell is this guy and why is he worth €30m? And before you ask, they did not simply confuse him with the other Dani Alves of Barcelona (he went for €29m + bonuses, which currently makes him only the second most expensive football playing D. Alves on the planet – chew on that one for a bit).

Haven’t got an answer for the second question just yet, but Danny is a 25 year old Venezuelan-born Portuguese midfielder who has spent the last 3 years with Dinamo Moscow after coming over from Sporting. It’s actually been a big week for Danny, because he earned his first cap for Portugal just last Wednesday. Thankfully he snuck that first cap in before the record transfer, or else that would’ve just looked weird. One makes all the difference…

Now, having seen this guy play a whole one time, it’s impossible for me to say whether or not he’s worth it, but let’s just say I’ve got my reservations. €30m is superduperstar territory and he doesn’t appear to be in that stratosphere just yet. In fact, a few weeks back when he was first linked, the pricetag sounded like it was one of those “we don’t want to sell him so we’re going to set the pricetag at a prohibitive GDP of a small nation“. Which may have been true, but Zenit pull up their trousers anyway and made it rain for Danny.

Of course, there’s another guy on Zenit whose transfer saga has been making a bit of news this summer – not sure if you’ve heard – in Andrei Arshavin. The powers that be in St. Petersburg are adamant in saying Danny is not a replacement – he’s a midfielder and Arshavin’s a Kaka-esque athlete/forward – but logic dictates otherwise. This could be the deal that allows him to move west towards London, where he’ll be less grumpy and all will turn butterflies and cupcakes again.

So now we wait. Wait to see if Danny proves himself worthy of the lofty pricetag and even loftier expectations and wait to see if this is the move which will begin the domino effect: Arshavin to Tottenham and then Berbatov to Manchester. Both deals which have a solid chance of breaking Danny’s current 2008 transfer fee record. But for now, Danny Alves, the other one, is your most expensive player of 2008.