Able to give us any indication El TicoMelbourne Victory to fly in mystery Costa Rican striker
Grantley Bernard
April 03, 2008 12:00am
THE Carlos Hernandez factor has led Melbourne Victory to consider signing another Costa Rican.
Encouraged by Hernandez's form late in the A-League season, Victory is poised to trial a Costan Rican striker, perhaps as early as next week, with a possibility he could play in an exhibition game against Adelaide United.
While Victory officials are tight-lipped about the identity of the player, it is known he played for Hernandez's former club, LD Alajuelense, and was recommended by the agent who helped guide Hernandez to Melbourne last season.
The only factor holding up the player's appearance at Victory training is the approval of the correct visa, which needs to be issued to the striker from Mexico via mail.
"We're working on it," Victory football operations manager Gary Cole said yesterday.
"We're waiting on the visa and until that gets ticked off we don't really know for sure when he'll be here."
After a slow start to his A-League career, Hernandez showed his value as an attacking midfielder with some excellent performances and goals in the second half of the season, leading to his recall to the Costa Rica national team for a pair of friendlies.
The achievements of Hernandez, who was consulted about the prospective signing, were enough to encourage the Victory football department to take a look at some more Costa Rican talent and bring the striker out for a two-week trial.
"Carlos proved to be a quality player and there's plenty of good players over there, so we decided to have a look at him," Cole said.
"(The striker) has got all the right pedigree, so we'll see if he suits us."
Victory has made no secret of the fact it needs another quality striker to support Archie Thompson and Danny Allsopp.
Brazilian Leandro Love has made little impact and will probably depart when his loan deal expires on June 30.
Even with Thompson out injured for the next eight weeks, Leandro will stay on the bench for Wednesday night's Asian Champions League home game against Gamba Osaka.
Adrian Caceres is set to move from his regular spot on the wing into a striker's role alongside Allsopp.
Victory trialled former Aston Villa striker Stefan Moore for a fortnight and played him in a game against Whittlesea Stallions, but it decided to look at other players as the club puts together a squad capable of making the A-League finals.
Other strikers are being considered for trials, but they will be on hold until the coaching staff runs the rule over the mystery Costa Rican in the next fortnight.
Sounds good though, hopefully a substantial player able to test Danny and Archie for a first team spot
If he is in any way in a similar mould ot Hernandez, ie classy touch than things shold be good
For the few of us up at this hour, this is very exciting news. I know Leandro hasn't been given much of a chance to do anything, but when he has been on the park, he looks like a complete and utter dud. A Costa Rican playing in Mexico huh? Will do some quick wiki and see what it turns up.
I wonder if he'll be eligible for ACL seeing as Archie has suffered a long term injury and apparently Hernadez injury has been prolongued to the entire campaign (hopefully not)
I'm not sure about the specifics of the injury rule, but one would assume not. The whole point of registering a list of 30 players was that if you were to suffer unfortunate injuries, you could call on them. I wouldn't mind seeing Elasi get a game and see what the kids made of. I could't find anything by looking at Mexican teams rosters on Wikipedia, I guess our mate El Tico is our best source until his identity it revealed.
well this is the best news ive heard but lets see how it works out, will we finally see our strikers getting subbed? i
So this guy is going to be useless and unfit for half a season before he becomes decent too?
yeah probs.Originally Posted by NULL
sounds like he'll be a good signing for two or 3 seasons at most, then he'll probably go back, or to the USA.
But Brebner was originally named and was able to be cut from the squad to be replaced by Pondeljak? I doubt they'd be flying him in so urgently if they couldn't put him in as injury cover.
Carlos Hernandez played for LD Alajuelense in 2006. i was googleing for a 2006 squad listm from that club to try and see which fw players they have and place them here so we know which players it might be. i got stuck because i dont know spanish and couldn't read there website and so on.
LD Alajuelense is a very good club over there and has produced many good footballers. so anybody we can get from them would be great.
Carlos Hernandez was ranked high over there and we have him now so if we look in those regons overthere for players i dont think we are going to be dissapointed.
we can actually go after there best players not just the leftovers like in bazil
farking finally! something to talk about.
Hmmm, wonder why that didn't post.
Basically i think the player is still playing in Costa Rica, not Mexico, they're just sending the VISA from Mexico as there's no embassy in Costa Rica.
I have just made a post on BigSoccer to see if the Costa Ricans there can find out who this striker is. But it is encouraging news.
Newfred MkII
something to get excited about
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