This article has a quick update. It says that Austria Wien is having talks with Manchester City to try to bring him back.
I know some of the clubs that are interested. The problem is that I never report on things like: "interest," or "on the radar" because it's is murky or misleading. All clubs are always interested in literally dozens of players. Big clubs have hundreds of players on their radar. It tells you nothing. I only start writing when I know the "interest" means having a realistic chance of happening. I don't know the level yet. The interest of him coming back to Austria Vienna is legit and has been for some time.
Why is anyone happy with him returning to Wein? EPB can't do better than that league? I totally get why they want him but this seems like a horrible career move if it happens.
I only watched a few of his matches this year, but from what I saw he has a ways to go. Don't know which teams are interested in him, obviously, but if it's at CB it's gonna be tough for him.
EPB has been dying for consistent playing time and Austria Wien is by far the best place he's ever gotten it. A step up would be great, but him establishing himself at any half-decent level is better than what he has been doing.
None of you think he could hack it at a Belgian side? Like I said, this is not a career move that screams good eventual first division defender to me. Man City move looks worse by the day.
He probably could, but is any team appreciably better than Austria Wien interested in starting him for 30 games? Maybe I've written him off too soon, but I feel like the "good eventual first division defender" ship has either already sailed or is damn close to raising the anchor. So given that, anywhere he's getting steady reps at a half-decent level is fine to me. The Man City move was a huge error though. Hope he's getting paid well, at least.
Maybe this move won't happen but for me he's 23 not 19 and the Austrian league is below MLS which means he hasn't taken a step forward since he left SKC. On talent alone I think he has more than CCV but one guy has two years Championship experience and the other is knocking around the 12th+ best league in Europe. The money does matter, especially with as short a career as football players have but this is as lackluster a career move as he could make, imo.
Dude was raised by a single mom who worked at Wal-Mart. He had a chance to get some generational money to take care of her and put his kids in a good place. He could have gambled or taken the sure thing. He took the sure thing. I can't fault him at all. If one of the power clubs offers you that cash, you take it. It's easy to judge from afar when you've never been poor. But he made the right call for his family and used soccer to better his life and theirs. I can live with that.
When I said "hope he's getting paid well," I meant that. I have no idea how much he makes at City. It wasn't a judgment on his family's economic status or his professional motivation.
I hope, you hope, he/she/it hopes; we hope . . . OK, sorry, I've been rehearsing for the new school year. At first glance, it's pretty mediocre. You're 23 and Austria's No. 4 team by budget - equivalent to Furth or Darmstadt, say - is the best you can get? OTOH his coach next season will be Peter Stoger (ex Koln and Dortmund coach) who was the Sporting Director last season. That they want him back means Stoger has already seen enough to have confidence in him, which is genuinely encouraging, even impressive. If he has equal confidence in Stoger, he should tell Citeh that he's going back with becoming the dominant CB in Austria the target, and absolutely bust his balls to do it. Achieve that, add Stoger's recommendations, and the Top 5 loan offers will come, along with the MNT caps (although you never know with Beerholder). But he must achieve that level for there to be any expectation of a stable BL1 or EPL CB being his level.
Not for his bank account. I'm more and more convinced that it is the right decision for guys to accept big money deals from big clubs and then play at where ever they are loaned to. What's the likelihood that a player ever becomes a world class player making a world class salary? Do they have the talent, do they have the drive, and most importantly, do they have the genetics that allows them to stay healthy enough to train that hard, play that many matches, and excel, to become super stars? The chances are really really slim. So when you are offered a good money deal you take it. Who knows if you will ever be offered another one ever. You may get injured, you may get found out that you can't hack it at this level, a pandemic might happen. We all look at this from an outsider's perspective, go to a club where the player will play, get better, improve our national team, and move on to a bigger club after a few years and move up the ladder. I would suspect in professional athletes' heads they see the money at these big clubs and think they would be fools to turn it down. Sure there are exceptions, guys who are just absolute lock superstars who can pick and choose where they go to make sure the club will offer potential playing time and development, and a great salary on their way to the top, but those are exceeeeeedingly rare. We have had two guys in the history of the sport in the US, Pulisic and now Reyna, who have had the luxury of making that choice. I'd cut the kid some slack. He's a good player, but Sergio Ramos he ain't never going to be.
True but he should be aiming to be as good as the best American CB's like Pope or Gooch or Boca or being among best centerbacks in CONCACAF. He might only have success in a mid-tier league but he's got a decade to forge his best path forward.
You may feel that way but it doesnt make it accurate.. No one in MLS could touch Salzburg, and I would imagine that the top 4 of the Buli would contend every single year for an MLS title. There are players on Salzburg's roster that are better than 99% of MLS players. Haaland was just one of them. Salzburg is quietly becoming like Ajax
I hope it’s the money. If it is, can’t fault a player for going that route. But it seems a lot of guys just see the big name and get drawn in. I get that too, but it comes with a different caveat. Unless you’re good enough to break into that first team almost immediately, you’re going to end up getting loaned out to teams who are not prioritizing your development. Its obviously different in a sense for players who come through the youth teams, and obviously loans exist for a reason and do work to a given extent. But I think about guys like EPB, Miazga, Altidore who see the big opportunity with the big boys when they would probably be better off getting a transfer to a lesser team, or maybe even one in a division lower or in a lesser league. I look at the 2007 U20 World Cup and guys like Cavani and Suarez compared to guys like Altidore. According to Transfermarkt the former two were more valuable but the difference was negligible. Jozy decided to go to a Champions League team in Spain that he wasn’t going to break into regularly while Cavani and Suarez were playing for “lesser” teams. I just wonder “What if” for a guy like Jozy has he gone to a Dutch team right away instead of wasting away at levels he wasn’t ready for or on the bench at a team that decided his loan wasn’t worth their time.
Up to a point. That point is where you've bought/have the contract that will enable you to buy your Mom a decent apartment and another one for yourself. After that, picking City offering, say, 800k to be another loan army mercenary over Brugge or PSV offering 500k to be at least the #3 CB in a side that often plays with a Back 3 and European competition is arguably sacrificing your development, certainly sacrificing your personal satisfaction/personal development for extra money that you could recoup if you become Brugge's main man and get an offer from a BL1 side. There's not much difference in lifestyle between retiring with $5m in the bank versus $8 million but there could be a big difference in terms of personal satisfaction as well as stronger personal contacts that will give you a leg up in post-playing work in coaching, player agent, media, etc.
What if that contract is literally the last contract the kid will ever get because he f'd up his knee or the like? 800k over 500k for 4 years is 1.2M pounds difference. That's not nothing and I don't think we can discount the bird in the hand argument flying around in these kids' heads when they are offered that sum of money.
I hear what you are saying, but Villarreal spent a sizable amount on Jozy. He had to have surgery during his first loan in the Segunda which meant he never really integrated into Spanish soccer. They got him a nice loan to an EPL team (which a prospect of his caliber should have gotten) where he got a lot of playing time and utterly disappointed. It was a combination of bad luck and Jozy never really fully integrating into Spanish soccer. Hindsight is 20/20, but the reality is Jozy never progressed to the point of being an impact or even regular starter on the top 3-5 leagues in Europe level. And that's ok. I don't think his Villarreal move had much to do with it. To be honest, they are the type of club we talk about wanting our players to go to. Yes Villarreal was a Champions League club at the time, but they do not spend a lot of money on transfers and typically develop from within. Jozy just couldn't make the grade. Totally different situation from the English loan armies that we are talking about when referring to Miazga and Erik Palmer-Brown.
Here's an article speculating that a potential signing by Wien might make it less likely that EPB returns on loan. Looking at the player, Nemeth, he's a young Austrian whose club apparently folded. https://kurier.at/sport/fussball/di...h-vom-konkurs-verein-sv-mattersburg/400997522 https://int.soccerway.com/players/david--nemeth/543465/