Omar Salgado to Europe?
The 18 year old’s decision to apply for a Spanish passport, and thus make himself more appealing to the European market, has made some headlines recently.
One line from Ives Galarcep’s article on the subject for Fox Soccer’s website in particular caught the eye, in which he wrote, “In fact, it isn’t a stretch to call Salgado the MLS player most likely to make a winter transfer move.”
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Well, is he really “the MLS player most likely to make a winter transfer move?”
The Vancouver Whitecaps don’t seem ready to give up on the No. 1 pick in the 2011 MLS SuperDraft just yet.
“They’re all hypotheticals, all those articles,” interim head coach Tom Soehn told Canadian Soccer News after training on Thursday. “What we’re going to focus on is making sure we continue to develop Omar on and off the field and make him a better soccer player and a better professional.”
The player himself though, who acquired the passport through his Spanish grandfather, wasn’t so quick to pour cold water on the speculation.
“Hopefully something happens,” Salgado said, when asked of a possible European move. “If not, I’m concentrated here on the Whitecaps and establishing myself as a starter.”
Salgado has routinely mentioned his eventual European ambitions in interviews, so that’s not news, but his decision to take out a passport and his clear dissatisfaction with his lack of playing time this season has added a sense of urgency to the situation.
“Right now I’m here with the Whitecaps and I’m looking for a starting spot and I haven’t got it,” Salgado said. “I keep fighting and fighting, and it’s frustrating and more frustrating every day, but I have to keep being patient.”
As in MLS, European leagues have caps on foreign players, so the passport would make him a more appealing signing. The fact he wouldn’t need a work permit doesn’t hurt either.
“It opens a big market for me as a player,” Salgado said. “It helps me out a lot, because I won’t be a foreign player over there, and hopefully one day I can play over there.”
The question increasingly seems to be whether that “one day” will be sooner rather than later.
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Martin MacMahon is a broadcast journalism student at the British Columbia Institute of Technology. He covers Vancouver Whitecaps FC for a number of soccer websites.
Follow him on Twitter: @martinmacmahon