Canadian Under-20 international right winger Michael D'Agostino has now played nine games on loan for League One side Cheltenham Town. Yesterday was supposedly his last match, but his loan deal has now been extended by a further 4 weeks to the maximum allowed (12 weeks) for emergency loan deals. However, Cheltenham are trying to persuade Blackpool to let the lad stay until the end of the season. If they are to do that then it will need to be done by tomorrow evening the end of the January Transfer Window. By all accounts he is doing superbly well for the Robins. Bearing in mind he played his first ever full professional game for them in an away match, on his full home debut he earned the Man of the Match award, which is a remarkable achievement for a player in his first every year of having a professional contract. Simon Grayson went to Cheltenhams home game last Friday to see D'Agostino play and apparently came away very impressed. It certainly looks like he will be coming back whenever he does eventually come back up North, maybe ready to start trying to get into the first team squad.
D'Agostino has been allowed to stay at Cheltenham until the end of the 2007-08 season with Simon Grayson having watched him last Friday playing for the Robins, he said that he was very impressed with how the lad is developing and that once the loan expires Blackpool will almost certainly activate the one year extension to his contract and that next season he should be there or thereabouts fighting for a place in the first team squa. If he keeps developing as well as he has been then the future does look very bright for him.
Just wanted to pass this along. I recently launched a website that profiles US collegiate players. I recently had the honor of interviewing Michael who played in US at the University of Kentucky. You can find the interview below. http://www.soccercityfc.com/2008/02/michael-dagostino-q-interview.html Best regards with thre remainder of Blackpool's season.
Thank you! Yes, he really was a class act during the interview process and I was honored to highlight him. -Take care.
Just wanted to pass along that Soccer City FC spoke with the right winger prior to leaving for England for the Seasiders preseason camp. The interview is now online.