Brighton sign Ecuador international Moises Caicedo for £5 million

Perseverance pays and for Brighton & Hove Albion, it has landed them one of the hottest prospects in South American football following the capture of Moises Caicedo from Ecuadorian club Independiente del Valle for a fee in the region of £5 million.

Caicedo has signed a contract through until 2025. It had been initially thought that he would be loaned to Tony Bloom’s Belgian club Union Saint-Gilloise, but he is now set to stay in England and potentially fight for a place in Graham Potter’s first team squad.

Manchester United had led the pursuit of the 19-year-old midfielder until the complexity of getting a deal done proved too much. Like many young players from South America, Caicedo was tied up in third party ownership and agents having ‘shares’ in the player.

This eventually led to United losing patience and pulling out. One Old Trafford insider rather brilliantly described negotiations “a clusterf**k”.

United’s loss is Brighton’s gain. The Seagulls have experience of untangling such contract webs after signing Billy Arce from Independiente in 2018. That also made the selling club eager to do business with the Albion again – hardly a surprise given that Brighton handed over £900,000 for a player whose biggest achievement in the past three seasons is to spend 20 days in an Ecuadorian prison.

Anyone who is worried that Caicedo might turn out to be another Arce need not be. United’s interest gives some indication of his talents, and his achievements in his brief career so far point to a player who has the potential to go onto become a genuine star.

Caicedo has made 31 appearances for Independiente since his debut in 2019. The majority of those have come as a defensive midfielder but as he matures and develops, he is likely to end up being a genuine box-to-box midfielder.

He has four goals to his name from those 31 matches, largely as a result of an astonishing engine that allows him to get up, down, and cover vast swathes of the pitch.

Moises’ passing ability can part defences like the Red Sea. He can carry the ball and reads the game in a manner befitting someone who has been playing senior football for 22 years rather than two. He has been likened to N’Golo Kante for his intelligence and positional discipline, attributes that you rarely see in a player of his tender years.

Take Yves Bissouma for example. Bissouma might be one of the best holding midfielders in the Premier League right now, but when he first arrived in England from Lille for £15 million in the summer of 2018, he lacked the maturity to fulfil such a role on a regular basis, hence why he flitted between a central midfield berth and playing as number 10.

It was not until 18 months into his Brighton career when he was 23-years-old that Bissouma started showing the qualities needed. Caicedo is already there, four years younger than Bissouma was when he learnt the value of the defensive side of the game.

Moises made his Ecuador debut in October 2020 and he has shone brighter than a burning bush on Mount Horeb, scoring his maiden international goal in a 4-2 win over Uruguay. In doing so, he became the first player born in the 21st century to net in a World Cup qualifier.

South American football expert Tim Vickery sung the praises of Caicedo when it looked like he was going to United. Vickery told Sky Sports: “Caicedo is much more than promise, he is reality. He is a terrific athlete who makes football look easy. A box-to-box midfielder.”

“A year ago he was saying that Kante is his role model but he is already more than that. He already offers more in the final third. He is strong, quick, intelligent and cool. He really does look like the genuine article.”

For all the praise coming his way, Caicedo is still only 19-years-old. An emotional clip posted on Twitter of Caicedo saying goodbye to his family at the airport serves as a reminder that this is a teenager moving to a country the other side of the world with a very different lifestyle to play in the toughest league on the planet.

It will take time for Moises to adjust and Brighton fans should not expect too much too sign. That really should be one of the Ten Commandments of being a Seagulls supporters: “Thou shalt give young players time to adapt to life in England.”

The good news for Moises is that Brighton have been here before. Like the Israelites wandering the wilderness for 40 years, the Albion have taken their time when it comes to new arrivals to English football.

Bissouma was managed gently and Alexis Mac Allister is only just becoming a first team regular now 12 months after he flew in from Boca Juniors. Even Tariq Lamptey sat in the stands for five matches (plus three months of lockdown) before his debut – and he had only come from Chelsea.

Long-term, it seems likely that Moises Caicedo will prove to be Bissouma’s successor in the Brighton starting line up once the Malian midfielder secures his inevitable move to one of the biggest clubs in the world.

Should Moises Caicedo live up to his potential, then he could become even better than Bissouma – and if that ends up being the case, then the £5 million Brighton have paid will be an absolute steal.