Inspired by Wrexham and PlayStation: How ex-Brazil star Pato ended up investing in Northampton Town
NORTHAMPTON, England — At the age of 11, Alexandre Rodrigues da Silva was 24 hours away from losing an arm because of an aggressive tumour. By 17, he had burst onto the scene at Internacional in 2006 and got himself a €24 million transfer to AC Milan a year later, where he scored on his debut against Napoli, starring alongside some legends of the game in Ronaldo, Kaka, Clarence Seedorf, Paolo Maldini and Andrea Pirlo.
Injuries hindered his development, but his 17-year career took in spells at Corinthians, Villarreal, Chelsea (on loan), China’s Tianjin Tianhai and MLS side Orlando City, plus three at São Paulo, saw him score 145 league goals — as well as 10 goals from 27 caps for Brazil, plus two Olympic medals (bronze in 2008; silver in 2012) — before he hung up his boots in 2023.
But now, still only 37, the former Brazil forward finds himself on the board of Northampton Town, a struggling League Two side near the bottom of England’s famous footballing pyramid.
On Saturday, the man nicknamed “Pato” (he hails from Pato Branco in south Brazil) watched from the windswept stands as the Cobblers beat Colchester United 2-0 to move out of the relegation zone, with fans of the east midlands club bedecked in yellow and green and chanting his name.
“I played as Northampton on video games when I was younger, and right now I am here!” Pato tells ESPN. “On PlayStation you could choose one team to play as from many teams, but I chose Northampton because I liked the badge, it’s an amazing one.
“Playing with them was not easy — and now it is for real. Now we have the club, the players, the opportunity to develop Northampton and to make history. Let’s see what we can do for the players, the town, the community. Having this club is special for us.”
Football has taken Pato on quite a journey already, but this may be the strangest turn to date. So just how did he get here, to a town 60 miles north of London that was the home to the British shoemaking industry for generations?
A unique place in history
Pato is the global face of Northampton Town’s new owners Sports Alpha Capital, after answering the call from a consortium of investors in Brazil and beyond. They came close to buying Colchester themselves at the start of 2026 before setting their sights 120 miles northwest to Sixfields Stadium.
To much of the outside world, Northampton’s place in football folklore is often reduced to a single, chaotic afternoon in February 1970. That was the day an unplayable George Best scored six goals for Manchester United against the Cobblers in an 8-2 FA Cup demolition at the County Ground. Best was so peerless that afternoon even Northampton’s players queued up to get his autograph at full time.
Yet Northampton have their own unique history that deserves more credit than just being the backdrop to Best’s early genius.
Back in the 1960s, Dave Bowen took the Cobblers on a miraculous journey in which they were promoted from the old Fourth Division to the top flight in the space of just five seasons. In 1965-66, the club found themselves hosting the likes of Bill Shankly’s Liverpool and Matt Busby’s Manchester United on a three-sided cricket ground.
But their descent was just as rapid. By 1970 they were back in the bottom tier, completing a unique round trip of all four divisions in less than a decade that remains unmatched in English league history.
Fast-forward six decades, and the club bought by Pato & Co. this summer was bruised and deflated by their relegation from League One. But now, in the 8,203-capacity Sixfields Stadium — which has four complete sides after a decade of legal battles saw the skeletal metal eyesore that mocked match-going fans for years redeveloped into the East Stand — since 1994, there is hope for the future.
????Welcome to Northampton, Sports Alpha Capital! #ShoeArmy ???? https://t.co/uEttT6EfFU
— Northampton Town (@ntfc) September 30, 2026
The deal for Sports Alpha Capital to buy the club was completed at the end of September and the club is now debt-free as a result — a rarity in the English Football League. New manager Chris Hogg and his players have made a slow start to the season — currently sitting 19th in a 24-team league, with three wins, four draws and four defeats from their 11 games — but expectations are high on and off the field.
Wrexham a trigger
The new owners are understandably cautious to over promise and under deliver, but the parallels with Wrexham are obvious and hard to ignore.
The 2021 takeover by Hollywood stars Ryan Reynolds and Rob Mac has helped the north Wales club climb from non-league football to the second-tier Championship in quick succession, all of it backed by a long-running TV show. But less than 10 years ago, Northampton finished 45 places higher in the English pyramid. Progression is possible.
“Welcome to Wrexham was a trigger for me to look into buying a club,” co-chairman Joao Xavier tells ESPN.
Xavier, 31, is a Brazilian corporate lawyer turned venture capital and private equity investor who formed Sports Alpha Capital alongside fellow co-chairman Tim Chamberlain and Pedro Piquet with the sole intention of buying a football club. A phone call to Pato — whom he had met as a fan in his teenage years — speeded up the process and Xavier threw himself whole heartedly into buying the Cobblers, attending away games incognito last season before the deal was even struck.
How it started: How it’s going: @JoaoXav97238961 ???? @Pato New leather. Same soul ???????????? #ShoeArmy ???? https://t.co/gH02wreP87
— Northampton Town (@ntfc) October 24, 2026
“Watching the show I had no idea of the power and the meaning for the people of clubs in the community,” he says. “The Wrexham show was the trigger but it’s not even close to reality. It’s certainly an inspiration. But we cannot copy them.”
Pato adds: “I love what Wrexham have done for the community, they have done a very nice job. This is different, but we believe in ourselves that we can do something special in Northampton. They have their model and we have our own model.”
How that model will exactly look remains to be seen, with ambitious plans for a footprint in Brazil and the obvious increase in revenue that could bring. There is talk of TV deals, a Netflix-style documentary and even offers to fly fans in from south America for matches at Sixfields. But perhaps most excitingly for fans of a club whose incoming transfer record of £160,000 (for winger Josh Low) has stood since 2003, there could even be some Brazilian players playing in the claret-and-white shirt soon.
“It is not a promise, but we would be stupid not to look into signing players from Brazil,” Xavier admits. “There are strict rules, but it is something we are looking into.”
The Brazilian connection
Fans of Northampton have heard for generations about the potential of their “catchment area,” which could span from Leicester City in the north to Coventry City in the west and across to Cambridge in the east, and MK Dons or even Luton Town in the south. It’s a big area, but nothing on the 214 million people who live in Brazil.
Plenty may scoff at the appeal of League Two football to the masses in the capital Rio de Janeiro or Sao Paulo, but Pato’s influence has already seen a huge increase in engagement and interest on social media and beyond.
The former striker is certainly taking his role seriously, posing for hundreds of photos with fans and meeting staff and players before both games he has attended since the takeover, despite still living in Brazil. Indeed, he was joined in his box on Saturday by an influencer from Brazil, streaming games on the PlayStation before the real kick off began.
“When I was here for the first time we heard the music from Brazil in the stadium,” Pato says. “Now we have people in Brazil t-shirts and scarves inside the stadium. We want to connect the club with Brazilians. We have so many opportunities.”
ESPN’s Brazil expert Tim Vickery says there are many in Pato’s home country who look on in fascination at the English leagues.
“The key word is ‘raiz,'” he explains. “It literally translates as ‘root’ — applied as ‘futebol raiz,’ it refers to a version of the game that is reassuringly and unashamedly old school. It means that some in Brazil are fascinated by the depth of the pyramid in English football. It is common to see shirts of the Premier League big hitters in the streets of Rio, and there is potential to create interest in a project involving Northampton Town.
“Brazil has only had a Fourth Division since 2009, and it is still precarious, restricted to five months in the second half of the year. A fallen giant like Santa Cruz of Recife can attract crowds of over 40,000 in Serie D. But that is very much the exception; some of the clubs have average attendances of under 100.
“To the Brazilian mind it is fascinating that teams can have considerable support even when there is little hope of winning titles. A club like Northampton is a proud representative of its town. And given that the town itself is so interesting, with its magnificent tradition of shoe making, all the raw materials are in place for a gripping soap opera … and Brazilians love soap operas.”
Project Premier League?
If Wrexham’s rise shows the dream of England’s pyramid, the recent State of the Game report hammered home the reality. While English football generated £9 billion ($11.9 billion) in revenue last season, 94% of clubs in the top five divisions made a loss. Northampton were not exempt; the most recent accounts to June 2025 showed a record loss for the club of nearly £3 million — and that was before their relegation from League One.
For context, the Gary Neville-backed Salford City, who sit top of League Two at the moment, went through a staggering £28 million of losses in their first 10 years of ownership.
“The report was not a surprise for those involved in football,” Xavier says. “But it’s good to have that in the spotlight so more people are aware. As a group, and a league, we can make improvements. The more sustainable we can be the better, but it’s no surprise. We were ready for that.
“We can bring more revenue to the club. We have 23 league games here, but what do you do the rest of the time? We are working on that. There is low hanging fruit we can pick to bring more to the club.”
Both men admitted they have been surprised at the strength of competition in League Two. That offers an obvious challenge, but a quick look at the Premier League table shows what can be achieved; after all, it’s not that long since the Cobblers were regularly playing Bournemouth, Brighton and Brentford — who have all gone on to huge success with shrewd investment.
“I have heard from many of my former teammates already,” Pato says. “I was in Milan two weeks ago and everyone said this will not be easy! But I believe this club can make history.
“During the World Cup in Miami I spoke to Roberto Di Matteo who knows this level [he coached at nearby MK Dons] and won the Champions League with Chelsea. He explained the leagues, what the traditional clubs in England are like. He gave me good advice with how I can help the club.
“Let’s see, it is a challenge, but I believe in our club and in our group and everyone here. This is just the start.”
The prospect of a run up the divisions like they did in the 1960s, or like Wrexham have done recently, is the goal. And in their newest supporter and investor, the self-proclaimed Shoe Army may have unearthed a lucky charm: Northampton Town have won three matches in 2026 and Pato has been at two of them.