CURITIBA, Brazil — In many ways, there is nothing extraordinary about Renan Lodi. A defender at the Spanish soccer club Atlético Madrid, Lodi is among the hundreds of Brazilian players who have crossed the Atlantic to play for European clubs in elite competitions like the Champions League.

More than 50 Brazilians, in fact, have played in the final. Lodi, 22, hopes to join that group later this month, when Atlético Madrid and seven other top teams gather in Portugal for the pandemic-delayed completion of this year’s tournament.

But while Lodi is still three wins from lifting the trophy, his European odyssey has already proven profitable for the company that discovered him at an out-of-the-way soccer school when he was 13. It has also validated a curious business project built around early investments in a precious, and plentiful, Brazilian export: soccer talent.

Since the 1970s, the Stival family has run a successful food supply business, one of the biggest of its kind in southern Brazil, from the southern city Curitiba. About 15 years ago, the family turned its attention to soccer. Like millions of Brazilian families, the Stivals are passionate fans of the game. But they could not help but notice how soccer players had increasingly become commodities, bought and sold for millions of dollars, just like the tons of beans, rice and grains that the Stivals traded every week.

Source: New York Times

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