Jo

Attention has been focussed, very understandably, on Jo in recent days.

£19million is an awful lot of money. And nobody really knows anything about him, or at least, not enough to feel comfortable with the amount being spent on him.

Here is some information which will hopefully make you feel better.

Starting his career at Brazilian club Corinthians, he won the Brazilian Cup in his first season playing senior football, in 2002. Increasingly settled into the side, his strike partnership with Carlos Tevez fired Corinthians to the Brazilian Serie A title in 2005. Jo's record for the Corinthians senior team is 13 goals in 81 games. He signed for CSKA Moscow in late 2005, having only just turned eighteen, but not in time to play any part in that year's Russian Premier League - which runs from March to November each season.

Jo won his first trophy with CSKA in only his second game - scoring the winner in the 3-2 defeat of Spartak Moscow in the Russian Super Cup. The 2006 Russian Premier League (from here, RPL) was a further triumph for CSKA and Jo in particular. CSKA won the title by virtue of having won more games than Spartak Moscow, with whom they were tied on points. Jo played 18 of the 30 league matches, and scored 14 goals (including four penalties). He was the second highest scorer in the RPL that year, the winner being Spartak's Roman Pavlyuchenko who scored 18. A perfect first season was capped with CSKA's triumph in the Russian Cup. Jo scored twice in the 4-1 quarter final second leg defeat of Rubin (5-2 on aggregate). After beating Zenit St Petersburg 4-0 over two legs in the semis, CSKA faced Spartak Moscow in the final. In the cup as in the league, CSKA triumphed over their local rivals, winning 3-0. Jo scored twice. Report here. YouTube here.

The 2007 season started with yet another triumph for silverware over Spartak Moscow. The Super Cup, the first match of the season, was CSKA's for the second year running as they beat Spartak 4-2: Jo scoring the third and fourth goals. The Russian Premier League campaign was not quite so successful though. CSKA finished in third place, six points behind Spartak Moscow and eight behind the winners, Zenit St Petersburg. And for the second consecutive year, Jo missed out on the RPL Top Scorer to Pavlyuchenko. Jo bagged 13 goals in 27 in the league: but Pavlyuchenko (and FC Moscow's Roman Adamov) each scored 14. There was no success in the cup either, as CSKA crashed out in the last sixteen to Krylya Sovetov Samara 2-0 over two legs. The end of 2007 did see some European fame for Jo, as he scored in both Champions League group games against Inter Milan. No medals for Jo then, in 2007, although he was rewarded with his first and only international cap in June.

What will (hopefully) prove to be his final year in Moscow has been mixed so far. With the RPL season one third of the way through so far, CSKA are in seventh place, with 15 points from 9 games. Jo has played 7 of those matches and scored 3 league goals. He will leave Moscow on a high though. Just last month, he won his second Russian Cup medal. CSKA faced FC Amkar Perm in the final. 2-0 down with twenty five minutes left, Jo set up Wagner Love for 2-1 before himself snatching a late equaliser, taking the game to extra time. It eventually came down to penalties, and Jo scored his as CSKA triumphed 4-1. It will forever be known as 'the Jo final', and you can see YouTube of the game here.

So in two and a bit seasons at CSKA, Jo has won one Premier League, two Russian Cups and two Super Cups. He has scored 30 in 53 in the league, and 44 in 77 in all competitions. He has twice scored the second largest number of goals in the league (albeit with two players ahead of him in 2007). Moreover, he is clearly a big game player. He scored the winning goals in both the 2006 and 2007 Super Cups, and scored in the Russian Cup finals of 2006 and 2008 - whilst also converting his penalty in the 2008 final shoot out.

If the two cup final YouTubes aren't enough, here is a more general one:



Whilst writing this, I've become very excited about signing him. I hope you now are too.