Szetela agrees deal with La Liga's Racing Santander
Ives Galarcep, Special to ESPNsoccernet
After nearly two months of transfer speculation and negotiations, Danny Szetela has passed up offers from Roma and Newcastle (among others) to play for Spanish First Division side Racing de Santander.
Szetela, who scored three goals for the U.S. U-20 national team in July's U-20 World Cup, has signed a three-year deal with the Northern Spain-based club, which began the La Liga season in solid fashion by tying Barcelona last weekend. Racing de Santander finished in 10th place in La Liga last season.
Szetela becomes the third member of this summer's U.S. U-20 national team to sign with a European club. Freddy Adu (Benfica) and Sal Zizzo (Hannover 96) both made the move after the U-20 World Cup while Red Bulls forward Jozy Altidore and Real Salt Lake defender Nathan Sturgis have been tipped to transfer to Europe this winter.
Szetela turned down offers from Newcastle, Roma and Brescia, including a late bid from Roma believed to be worth more than 250,000 Euros per season. Financial details of the Racing deal were not disclosed, but Szetela chose to take less money from Racing than Roma in order to have a better chance of seeing first-team action.
Racing de Santander will pay a $150,000 transfer fee to Major League Soccer, a large portion of which will go back to the Columbus Crew. The low fee is a result of Szetela's contract status (his current deal with MLS expires at the end of the year).
Szetela becomes the second American-born player to sign with a Spanish club this summer, joining fellow Clifton, New Jersey native and childhood friend Giuseppe Rossi, who signed with Villarreal earlier this summer. Racing plays host to Villlarreal on Sept. 26th.
Szetela is expected to travel to Spain this weekend for his physical. He currently holds a Polish passport which means he won't count toward Racing's foreign player total.
[ 本帖最後由 WainSeven 於 2007-9-102:35 PM 編輯 ] Jose Mari 仲剩番幾多料. de la Red 唔知點轉, 轉了去馬德里邊皮; 皇馬 --> 赫達菲, unknown:(
莫達 巴卡 --> 馬體會 1M
另外列基美轉會流產:(
盧辛 馬體會 --> 薩拉戈薩 2.8M:D
何塞.馬里 比利亞雷亞爾 --> 貝迪斯, unknown 原帖由 TAMTOM 於 2007-9-117:48 發表 http://hkcm.hkehost.net/forum/images/common/back.gif
Jose Mari 仲剩番幾多料.
X:icon032: 原帖由 FlyingDonkey 於 2007-9-118:15 發表 http://hkcm.hkehost.net/forum/images/common/back.gif
de la Red 唔知點轉, 轉了去馬德里邊皮; 皇馬 --> 赫達菲, unknown:(
莫達 巴卡 --> 馬體會 1M
另外列基美轉會流產:(
盧辛 馬體會 --> 薩拉戈薩 2.8M:D
何塞.馬里 比利亞雷亞爾 --> 貝迪斯, unknown ...
盧辛+沙柏達:icon039:
The Big Letdown
After what felt like decades of promises of “Alves to Real Madrid!” and Ronaldinho to Chelsea!” from the world’s footballing press - and this blog - transfer deadline day offered as much excitement as Saturday’s Levante v Murcia bore fest, which left gallons of dribble on La Liga Loca’s favourite cushion, after a bit of a snooze.Unless you consider the idea of Celta Vigo’s Borja Oubiña being punished for his relegation by spending a year on loan at Birmingham, as thrilling - the whole affair was rather underwhelming.
Marca’s news busting headline of Alves heading to the capital, on Friday afternoon, had the stuffing knocked out of it somewhat, when the full back trotted out for Sevilla during Friday’s Super cup defeat a few hours later.
However, the turbocharged defender is set for an uncomfortable year at his club after taking on President del Nido in a post match interview.
“He was only joking about it (refusal to play). If not, it is was a lack of respect”.
Any move d’inho was going to make to Chelsea was almost certainly scuppered with the news breaking of Samuel Etoo’s latest injury lay off. The Cameroonian is set to return to action in three to four months - just in time to disappear for another month at the African Cup of Nations.
Julio Baptista’s cunning plan of chaining himself to Ramón Calderón’s death ray console to avoid a transfer worked a treat. The Brazilian midfielder / striker thingy, is set for a tough winter of bench warming as he sits his contract out.
Sevilla have boosted their goal scoring armoury a little, with the purchase of Arouna Koné from PSV, for 12 million euros.
There is confusion at Vicente Calderón - when isn’t there - over what happened to cause the collapse of the Riquelme deal. Some reports say that the club wanted it to go through, but Javier Aguirre vetoed it. Some say the opposite. The Mexican manager himself gives credence to the first theory - “it was a risk”, he admitted on Saturday.
Meanwhile, the fate of Roman is still in the air with the possibility of a deal between Villarreal or Boca Juniors still possible - either that or Yellow Submarine president, Fernando Roig, will have the midfielder flogging programmes outside the Madrigal for the next nine months.
Atletico, instead, stuffed the club fax machine with paper and brought Barcelona’s much maligned, Thiago Motta, into the midfield, and told Peter Luccin to do one and move to Real Zaragoza to join his old team-mate, Gabi.
Getafe finally prized Rubén de la Red from Real Madrid’s clutches and Real Betis brought in the hilariously bad Villarreal striker, José Mari.
Much of the headlines on Saturday were made up of the players clubs failed to get. Espanyol and Deportivo did not manage to land much needed strikers, whilst Athletic Bilbao failed in late attempts to lure Ezquerro from Barcelona - where the forward is probably sitting on quite a nice contract, thank you very much.
http://laligaloca.blogspot.com/2007_09_01_archive.html#3891715372994188414
閒人內進
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1aU7CMqA0Yhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=db-C0_ruw5A
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JLVEn3BKFg&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Earmandella%2Ecom%2Fellavideos%2Ehtm