No sooner had Manchester United struck a £38.9million deal with Atalanta for their Brazilian midfielder Ederson than the club were confirming Rasmus Hojlund’s permanent return to Italy with Napoli for an almost identical figure.
Hojlund made a decent fist of his two seasons at Old Trafford, but was always fighting to justify an inflated price tag after United agreed to pay Atalanta up to £72m for the Dane.
Fans can only hope that Ederson offers a little more bang for his buck after Atalanta accepted an offer worth £35m plus up to £3.9m in add-ons, and the player agreed a four-year contract with the option for United to extend it by another 12 months. He is set to have a medical and become United’s first signing under head coach Michael Carrick sometime around his 27th birthday early next month.
So far, the reaction has been a little mixed. Maybe it’s because Ederson didn’t make the final cut for Carlo Ancelotti’s World Cup squad – unlike Casemiro, the man he will replace at Old Trafford.
Maybe it’s because fans have their hearts set on more eye-catching targets like Elliot Anderson, Aurelien Tchouameni and Sandro Tonali. United will sign at least one more central midfielder this summer and have not given up on Anderson, despite the feeling that he is destined for Manchester City.
Tchouameni and Tonali cannot be discounted, but West Ham’s Mateus Fernandes feels like a more realistic option right now.
Manchester United have agreed to sign the Brazilian midfielder Ederson from Atalanta for £38.9million
And the club have let striker Rasmus Hojlund join Napoli for an almost identical figure
Maybe the reservations over Ederson reflect Atletico Madrid’s reluctance to pay close to £40m for a player who would have been out of contract in a year’s time – which opened the door for United to buy someone who was refusing to sign a new deal in Bergamo – or any loose comparisons with some of the hit-and-miss Brazil midfielders to represent the club down the years like Anderson, Kleberson and Fred.
Given that this week started with Senne Lammens being voted the Premier League’s signing of the season, the decision-makers at United who also brought in Bryan Mbeumo and Matheus Cunha last summer deserve the trust and patience of supporters. Indeed, if Ederson can have the same kind of impact as his compatriots Casemiro and Cunha, United will be very happy with their investment.
The reports from Italy, where he has played for the last four-and-a-half years, are promising. Ederson is a box-to-box midfielder who arrived from Brazil with a reputation as a more offensive player but learned to be more technical and tactical in Serie A, playing in a pivot at Atalanta alongside Marten de Roon.
‘It was a bit difficult at first but now, looking back, I think it was a good adaptation,’ he says. ‘I’m happy to have managed to understand the ideas of the game so quickly, to know that this is a league with a more tactical, positional scheme.
‘I can play in several positions. Playing in Italy helped me a lot with this. If I have to choose a position, I wouldn’t know how to tell you. I don’t have a preference where to play – whether it’s with a little more freedom or more positional. Depending on the situations of the game or what the coach needs, I manage to understand what is needed.
‘I like to attack because I have the strength to do so, and then to get back into position to defend. Of course, everyone wants to score, but I know how important the more defensive, positional function is for the team as a whole.’
Ederson’s record of 27 goals from 313 games – a similar strike rate to Kobbie Mainoo, for instance – bears out his attacking potential. The highlight for Atalanta was a fantastic strike in a 2-2 Champions League draw at Barcelona last season after he smuggled the ball away from Gavi and Lamine Yamal.
Above all, though, United fans can expect an all-action midfielder with great stamina who likes to cover every blade of grass. Ederson plays with an intensity and aggression that enables him to win possession and put his team on the attack. At 6ft tall, he is strong in the air and hard to knock off the ball.
Ederson won the Europa League with Atalanta in 2024. ‘It’s a great memory, a moment of happiness. I remember practically everything,’ he says
United fans can expect an all-action midfielder with great stamina who likes to cover every blade of grass
That was never more evident than Atalanta’s 2024 Europa League triumph, when he starred in a 3-0 semi-final first-leg win over Liverpool at Anfield, and was instrumental in inflicting Bayer Leverkusen’s only defeat of the season in the final. ‘It’s a great memory, a moment of happiness. I remember practically everything,’ says Ederson, who earned the first of his three caps for Brazil that summer. He was named in Ancelotti’s initial 55-man squad last month, but omitted when that was trimmed to 26.
Born in Campo Grande, Ederson grew up more than 500 miles to the east in Porto Feliz on the outskirts of Sao Paulo and joined local club Desportivo Brasil. ‘He trained for two weeks on trial and then we signed him up,’ his youth-team coach Anderson Gongora told Italian outlet Cronache di Spogliatoio in 2023. ‘He arrived when he was 14 and we were together for three-and-a-half years.
‘I remember well the tournament in which he started playing: the Paulista Under-15 Cup. We faced teams like Santos and Flamengo, basically it was a national championship. He was like an airplane. He was flying!’
Gongora remembers Ederson starting out as a midfielder or occasionally a defender. He tried to help him improve his offensive skills and become a more rounded player, dedicating one day a week to working on specific roles. Then there was the mental aspect.
‘He was very anxious because he couldn’t wait to leave Desportivo Brasil to play in an important club,’ said Gongora. ‘So we had him followed by a club psychologist, and from that moment on he was called up to the youth national teams and then moved to Cruzeiro. Also, we worked on his character because he couldn’t be arrogant. We had to make him keep his feet on the ground. However, I have never had any problems with him, on or off the pitch.’
Ederson, who has two young daughters with his wife Myckaela Lobianco, has continued to place great emphasis on his mental wellbeing in Italy. ‘It’s very important to me that if you have good mental health, you’ll be the best footballer you can be,’ he says.
‘Working on my mental strength is very important. I started doing it after my first season in Atalanta. After that summer I came back with the positive thought that I could do better, that I knew my quality and had no negative reason not to do well.
‘I’m strong, I’m healthy, which is the most important thing, and my family is by my side. When I’m at home I try to have time with my wife and daughters. Football consumes you a lot on a daily basis, and even during training there is pressure. So when I’m at home, I try to rest and pay attention to my family.’
Ederson places great emphasis on his mental wellbeing. ‘It’s very important to me that if you have good mental health, you’ll be the best footballer you can be,’ he says
Atalanta are making a tidy profit on their investment, but United hope it will be money well spent
Family was important to Ederson growing up with his mother Edilene, stepfather Paulo Victor Leal and brother Eduardo. He was close to his grandmother Edithe Candido dos Santos and had her birth date tattooed on his right arm before his move to Cruzeiro in Belo Horizonte, having had a brief spell on loan at Desportivo Brasil’s parent club in China, Shandong Luneng.
Although Cruzeiro were relegated for the first time in their then 98-year history in 2019, Ederson was one of the better players that season and sued the club for unpaid wages before securing a move to Corinthians, who sent him out on loan to Fortaleza.
A serious knee injury training with Brazil Under 20s had kept him out of the game for 10 months and put his dream of a move to Europe on hold, but Salernitana’s sporting director Walter Sabatini spotted him playing for Corinthians and took him to Italy in January 2022.
Ederson played a key role in helping Salernitana escape relegation, and five months later he was on his way to Atalanta in a £19.8m deal, where he excelled under Gian Piero Gasperini. As with Hojlund three years ago, Atalanta are making a tidy profit on their investment, but United hope it will be money well spent.
