Chris Durkin at Sint-Truidense V.V. (Belgium)

He was sold for 1 million Euros, or $1.1 million, in July.

 

Durkin comes on for an injured teammate in the 37th with the game knotted 1-1.

 

STVV take the lead to go up 2-1 in the 51st, and Joe Efford enters in the 57th to make this some off-the-bench yank vs yank action.

 

Efford had a hockey assist on Waasland-Beveren's goal to close the gap to 3-2.

 

Durkin subbed in at 35' to stop the bleeding, with his team already trailing v Mark McKenzie's Genk 3-0 - Genk currently leading 4-0 at 65'.

 

For those following him, what's his grade for the season?

 

United Spezia of America

 

doesnt italy have pretty strict international slot rules?

 

Yeah, I thought they could only buy 2-3 foreign players per window. Maybe someone has an EU passport.

The more Americans the owner is interested in, the less excited I am. I'm skeptical some of these guys can play in Serie A effectively / get PT, and I don't think forcing anything because someone is American helps anything really.

 

Spezia situation is turning kind of bizarre. I don't like it.

 

Wonder how long a player needs to play in the EU for to be considered domestic. If it’s very short I wouldn’t be surprised to hear if any Seria A teams try to game the system a bit.

Maybe some Seria A clubs have strong connections with other clubs in Europe that they have a prospective SA player that gets bought and plays for half-full season, and then can be brought in without using a non-EU spot. Although maybe this is all too much of hassle and risk and never happens.

 

I dunno, I think this is the type of club that makes sense for Cannon, Wright might be worth a flyer and I don't know enough about Durkin to know how big a reach this is. Regardless every one of us in YA would run our club the same way given the chance, no?

Matt Turner or Horvath next?

 

If Durkin stays at Sint-Truiden he will have a new manager with Peter Mees leaving to take the Beerschot job. He was replaced by German Bernd Hollerbach who last managed Mouscron.

Durkin registerd a goal and 3 assists in 1,981 minutes (28 apperances including 20 starts) for Sint-Truiden during the 2020/2021 season. He picked up 6 yellow cards. Transfermarkt has him making 5 appearances at right back last season. Sint-Truiden finished 15th.

Durkin also played 136 minutes (2 starts) in the Belgian Cup. Sint-Truiden were eliminated in the Round of 16.

 

Good God almighty. The schedule Euro players are enduring from the COVID return through the end of 2023 is insane. I suspect Europe is going to have a decimated generation of players, due to injuries.

 

That doesn't seem quite right to me. Suarez was in Europe 10 years but Juve tried to get him a dodgy passport because they used the non-EU spot on Weston. I think it's a limit of one non-EU player per year and it doesn't matter if the player is in Europe already.

 

And even if they don't get injured, they'll be forced to retire earlier and be much more likely to have arthritis in their 50's. Much worse arthritis at that.

 

Juve also registered Arthur Melo in the same window as Wes

 

yeah i think this is right. Otherwise, woulda been more yanks already in Italy that were previously successful in europe.

....over the last several decades, there have been plenty of yanks good enough for serie a...but very few good enough for a precious non-eu spot.

 

I had to look this up because I forgot the rule the other day on another thread. Basically, per season Serie A teams can only sign 2 new non-EU players. This is based on their passports, so, for example, if Luis Suarez had a Spanish passport, he would be OK and not count against it. He didn't, so Juve tried to "fast-track" (cheat) his Italian citizenship exam to get him into the EU player bucket.

Spain and UK do not have the same limit, so he was free to play there without becoming an EU citizen. This applies to all of our guys without EU passports as well.