Alexandre Pato hasn’t got his best football in the United States. At 32, he suffered injuries and ended Orlando City’s 2021 season on reserve, playing only five games and scoring no goals. The team was knocked out of the MLS Cup yesterday (23) and the Brazilian contract expires in December.
Pato arrived in Orlando in February, six months after breaking up with So Paulo. He suffered a knee injury on his debut, had to undergo surgery in April and only returned to play in October.
He has since played a few minutes in four Orlando City games, including the final segment of yesterday’s 3-1 loss to Nashville, which ended the team’s season. In all, there were only 116 minutes on the field, and one game as a starter – just like the one he injured in April. Their ultimate goal was in March 2020 in the defeat of So Paulo by Binacional in their Libertadores debut that year.
Now Alexandre Pato has to make a decision. His contract expires on 31 December, and the destination could be Brazil: his manager has already said that he has held talks with the two Brazilian clubs. However, a renovation with the City of Orlando isn’t out of the question in itself.
In Brazil, Pato has already played for Inter, Corinthians and So Paulo. It was revealed by Colorado in 2006 and went on to pursue a career in Milan, in which he spent his best season. Repatriated by the Corinthians in 2013, it did not work and was changed to tricolor the following year. He will still go through Chelsea, Villarreal and Tianjin Tianhai (CHI) before his second spell in So Paulo, which ended last year.
