ATLANTA STILL CHASING VELA
Atlanta United remain interested in signing Carlos Vela, despite the player’s stance. According to ESPN’s John Sutcliffe, Atlanta United want the Mexican to join their squad along with PSV Eindhoven midfielder Andres Guardado.
Sutcliffe made the revelation when Mexico played against Paraguay at the Georgia Dome. Sutcliffe is known as one of the most reliable Mexican news sources.
He said “I know from good sources that they [Atlanta United] are going after Andres Guardado and also, Carlos Vela. They have an advantage as the new LA team (LAFC) will not start until 2018.”
Both of the players have active contracts that will run through the 2017/2018 season but Atlanta United are insistent on getting their signatures, especially as there a lot of Mexican-American fans in Atlanta. The club want to also use the players to boost the hype ahead of their inaugural season at the Major League Soccer.
The club has some pretty big backers from across a wide spectrum of businesses, so have the financial firepower to agree terms with top-class footballers like Carlos Vela, but this current gambit seems to be a bit of a gamble on their behalf - to us it seems a bit like putting money in one of the slot machines you see online (visit the site if you don't know what I'm going on about!) Atlanta will give the slots a spin, but whether they manage to get an international fotballer such as Vela depends very much on luck.
Vela played in Mexico in the early stage of his career at Guadalajara before moving to England to play for Arsenal in 2005. He was loaned out to Celta de Vigo, then UD Salamanca and CA Osasuna all in Spain year after year. He eventually played for the club in 2007 but didn’t impress so he was sent on another loan to West Brom. He was loaned to Real Sociedad in 2011 but the club officially signed him in 2012.
The speculations started to arise last season upon the poor performance of Vela for Real. He had only five goals in the La Liga at the end, fueling the speculations. It was a very poor campaign for the Mexican as he has scored 51 goals in his past four seasons. However despite all these, the player through his agent Eduaro Hernandez insists he intends to remain in Spain.