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Manchester City attacker Oscar Bobb should be a Porto star, it has been revealed.

Bobb is making a name for himself at City this season, but it could've been so different if Porto and the player's family had had their way.

Tribuna Expresso reports Porto discovered him in a soccer tournament held in the Algarve in 2013 - when he was only 9 years of age.

Contacts with his family began immediately. Porto began to pay for Bobb's trips so he could get to know the club and his mother, Turid Gunnes, an actress by profession, moved to Portugal in 2015 - the player was 12 years old - alleging "related reasons" with her "professional activity".

The move, as 'Football Leaks' later revealed, aroused the suspicions of FIFA, which only allows the transfer of EU community players under 16 years of age when their parents emigrate for reasons other than football. In other words: the club that welcomes them cannot create the conditions for their family to establish themselves in the country.

And Porto, according to FIFA, did so. Hence, finally, in 2016, they decided not to authorize Bobb's registration as a "federated athlete".

Yet Porto tried to keep hold of him. In 2017 he went on to play at the Hernani Gonalves school, based in Porto, but FIFA again denied the international transfer certificate when it learned that it was a 'bridge-club' to end up landing in with the Dragons.

Things went so wrong that Bobb, Lyn's youth player, ended up returning to Norway to play for Valerenga and, in the summer of 2019, eventually made the jump to Manchester City.

This article first appeared on Tribal Football and was syndicated with permission.

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