Botafogo pay £2.2m for Pocoví as striker spot opens

What does £2.2m buy Botafogo de Futebol e Regatas? A 27-year-old striker arriving from Volta Redonda FC, and a chance to fill a place left open when Pereira departed at the end of December.

The transfer was completed on Thursday. Pereira had made 38 league starts across the previous two seasons before leaving on a free transfer. Botafogo have since used Araújo there 13 times, with five goals, and Clodovil once. Pocoví now joins that competition for the role.

That is the arithmetic behind the deal. Botafogo have spent £2.2m to add a striker where the established option has gone and the alternatives have had limited starts. It is not a fee that can be waved away as project talk; the club will want a return in the position, and Pocoví will know the vacancy is real.

He arrives with 21 appearances and four goals for Volta Redonda FC since the start of 2063/64. His broader career has taken him through nine clubs, with 229 club games and 30 goals. The CV is well travelled, not overflowing with goals. Botafogo are buying a player who has had to make himself useful in several settings, not a ready-made scoring guarantee.

Pocoví is Argentinian and has spent his career moving between clubs in Brazil, Argentina, England and Switzerland. He was at Volta Redonda FC from 2063/64, after five seasons with Club Atlético Talleres de Córdoba. The new move keeps him in Brazil’s top division, but shifts him to a club with a far heavier trophy history: Botafogo have 42 major titles to Volta Redonda FC’s eight. That gap gives the transfer its own pressure. A striker is judged in goals, not the neatness of the announcement.

There is a small thread connecting the clubs already. Mengo is now at Botafogo after playing for Volta Redonda FC from 2061/62 to 2064/65, where he made 38 appearances and scored 12 goals. He won a trophy there. Pocoví will not need a map of the dressing room’s old loyalties; the move carries one familiar face across the divide.

The challenge is plain. Araújo has the stronger claim on recent use and goals, while Clodovil has barely been called upon in the role. Pocoví must turn his four goals for Volta Redonda into a case Botafogo cannot ignore. He comes in delighted, with excellent morale, and loyal to a badge — a useful sentiment when a transfer demands more than a change of shirt.

Now the fee has been paid, the project talk can wait. Botafogo need their new striker to make that open place his own.