Haha, what about the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th ranked scorers over the last 10 years? If he plays well and scores a lot of goals there will be interest.
I'm surprised that no one has mentioned Josh Gatt in this discussion. (Pardon if anyone did. I didn't read back too many pages.) He went from the Austrian Second Division to a much better league after only 15 games. It's not like European managers aren't aware of what goes on there.
I agree but thankfully USMNT assistant coach Andy Herzog will be close to him in Austria since he lives there to help him out.
Oh, I totally agree. I just meant that if someone can make the jump from the Austrian 2nd Division to Norway than Austria is clearly scouted by managers in better leagues. Boyd can definitely make it to a better league.
Re the Austrian league: The Austrian league is not regarded as a top selling league like The Netherlands for example. They mainly supply the German market (unsurprisingly). However, if Boyd impresses at an Austrian top- club, his chances to attain the interest of a top Bundesliga club are not that bad, I would say. Certainly it is better than sitting around with the Dortmund reserves. Generally, games between the top four Austrian clubs are not bad, but, as already mentioned the drop off to the teams behind is pretty big, as in most smaller leagues. The smaller clubs also don't have much fans, less than 5000 average attendence mostly.
Nope. Last season, former Buddle club FC Ingolstadt had the lowest average attendance with 7500. Average over all clubs is 17200. http://www.spox.com/de/daten/fussball/zuschauer/2-bundesliga-2011-2012/1/
Combined attendance table for both leagues: 1) Eintracht Frankfurt 37,641 2) F. Düsseldorf 31,900 3) Dynamo Dresden 24,848 4) FC St. Pauli 23,220 5) 1860 Munich 23,220 6) E. Braunschweig 21,396 7) A. Aachen 18,612 8) Union Berlin 16,124 1) Rapid Wien 15,767 9) Karlsruhe 15,173 10) Hansa Rostock 14,053 11) VfL Bochum 13,756 12) Duisburg 13,461 13) Cottbus 11,272 14) Greuther Fürth 10,909 2) Sturm Graz 10,827 15) Paderborn 10,248 3) RB Salzburg 9,849 16) E. Aue 9,355 4) Austria Wien 8,227 17) FSV Frankfurt 7,931 18) Ingolstadt 7,563 5) Wacker Innsbruck 6,392 6) SV Ried 4,928 7) SV Mattersburg 4,873 8) Admira 4,488 9) Wr. Neustadt 2,879 10) Kapfenberg 2,430
As I said, it's possible that a player from Austria is signed by a club from another league. The thing is - players like Okotie have moved from being starters in the Austrian league to playing for the reserve side of clubs in Germany or Italy - which is basically the situation Boyd is already in anyway. The most talented Austrian players leave Austria at the age Boyd is going there. His career certainly wouldn't be over or anything, but for German players a move to Austria is generally not seen as a move forward. Anyway, Rapid is denying that they are close to signing Boyd in the Austrian papers today according to the transfermarkt message boards.
1 - Janko left at 26, Jelavic at 25. We can sit and find anecdotes for every scenario, but the point is these moves up happen for players who compel them with fine play, just like any league. 2 - Hmm. I wonder if an interloper is mucking it up for them.
Also depends on your standards of course - Janko certainly had a respectable career and all. Considering that he's one of the hyped up new players de jour in Germany at the moment this wouldn't be all that remarkable however. Of course I'm well aware that for American players in Europe there's a somewhat different standard still, compared to German prospects (and I really hope that doesn't sound condescending, that's not what I intended). The quote from Rapid is "He's one of the players we are looking at, nothing more", fwiw.
At Transfermarkt.at they value Boyd at €200K http://www.transfermarkt.at/de/terrence-boyd/profil/spieler_103064.html
To put a YA context around a potential Austrian move, how have previous Yanks done after playing in Austria? I can only think of three, I'm sure there are more. Probably would me most useful to limit to field players. The three below happen to be forwards. Josh Gatt (Altach, Austrian 2nd tier) - Transferred(?) to Molde in Norway Nate Jaqua (Altach, Austrian 1st tier) - Released, signed with Houston Dynamo in MLS Preston Zimmerman (Kapfenberger, Austrian 1st tier) - Released, signed amateur contract with Mainz II in Germany
Yeah Gatt was bought by Molde (low transfer fee, not sure what it was). Seth Moses is at Altach right now if memory serves, but I can't think of any more. I think Kei Kamara played there, but he's not a Yank and he went back to MLS.
I lived in Austria for a couple years. It is a small country where the national sport is skiing. If he goes there, even to one of the bigger Austrian clubs, it will be up to him how good of a player he wants to be, just as in any other league. He's young enough that it could be a decent place to play for a year or two to get some experience under his belt. His real goal should be to be back in Germany in no more than two years, IMO. If he scores goals there, it will happen. The majority of the Austrian national team is pulled from the Vienna clubs, Salzburg, and German clubs, with a good number coming from Rapid, if I'm not mistaken, so he'd see decent competition in training and a few tough games per season within the league. I don't think that's a terrible situation for a player his age.
Although you have to decipher the Google translate, it's on point. The end just talks about how Dortmund was prepared for this, and have a bunch of other prospects to fill his place.
They are just directly quoting the Austrian source that has already been discussed on this thread. No new information, just some stuff about how Dortmund has already prepared for the eventuality of Boyd leaving.