To think that until ten minutes ago, I had no idea that Guinea-Bissau was a place, and there it is, tucked in between Senegal and Guinea! https://www.britannica.com/place/Guinea-Bissau
It's our MO - sign players who then immediately start playing national team games for obscure countries. Let's see, there's Bouda (Burkina Faso), Vieira (Guinea-Bissau), Monteiro (Cape Verde), Akapo (Equatorial Guinea, not to be confused with Guinea-Bissau or Guinea!). Who am I missing?
Yeah, I thought about Vako and Guram, and even Hyka (the Albanian Messi!), but yeah, not quite at the same level. I did a "whatever happened to..." on Hyka and looks like he played for another 4 years, a few clubs in Israel, one in China, and then curtain call back in Albania. He scored a total of 6 goals in those 4 years. I guess the reason Jesse signed him in the first place is that he played at Luzern (Swiss 1st division) for a long time.
According to wikipedia, Vako is now playing in China and hasn't played for Georgia since 2022. Kashia is playing in Slovakia, and does still play for the Georgian nats I think. I think someone said they saw him playing with them recently. And he's 38! I guess he's like the Georgian Tim Ream.
He certainly isn’t a star player. I don’t think he’s as good as Judson when Judson was at his best. I’d be happy to cut or trade him, but I’m not sure about the finances of that. So, my first plan is to sign a really good d-mid, and relegate Viera to backup. I think that would be acceptable. Go Quakesfans!!
Bruce seems to really like him for some reason. He’s not going anywhere. To me he’s just OK. He does well with the ball but not seeing the ball winning that he claims that he does.
I don't know if this has already been posted, but I stumbled across this highlight video of Vieira with Leeds from about 7 years ago. I think he was about 20 at this time. I know it's a highlight video but he looks much better than he does now. How does a player in his prime get worse than he was at 20yo? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Was he having a giant string of beginner's luck? But it's not just that, he looks like he's playing more aggressively, actually getting stuck in and making tackles.
With TT I think coaching did play a part in slowly but systematically beating the creativity / willingness to take chances out of him. it was kind of brutal to watch unfold over the years. And then I think also his achilles heel - too slow. I don't know what it is with Vieira. He's still pretty good with his passing. But I don't see the same level of aggressiveness on defense. Maybe he got burned with a bunch of cards?