Marco Pappa prefers Spain
Posted on July 9th, 2011 | 9 Comments |
Now I must confess that I hadn’t heard of Marco Pappa and, anyway, it seems that any ‘link’ he supposedly has with a transfer to Newcastle is enormously speculative and looks a bit like one of those ‘plucked out of the air’ things the press make up from time to time.
The rumour appeared to start while I was lazing on a beach in ignorance of all Toon news, but yesterday Pappa – who currently plays for Chicago Fire in America’s Major League Soccer – expressed a preference for joining La Liga anyway, saying:
“My contract is expiring soon and I am looking at options to play in Europe. Hopefully doing so will benefit my career. I am very grateful to the MLS, but now I am about to take a different step and don’t want to play in my home country.”
What he might be talking about with the ‘not wanting to play in his home country’ bit there is alleged interest in him from Colo-Colo in Chile’s Primera División because he said:
“Yeah, right. There is talk of Colo-Colo, I heard rumours … I want to live different things to move forward in my career. Guatemalans need that international experience to grow.“
So, given that he’s from Guatemala rather than Chile, maybe he means he wants to avoid his home continent rather than country and it was simply lost in translation. Or not. Anyway, that’s not particularly important. He goes on to say:
“For the qualities of the league I would rather Spain, but I think any league in the world is very good for me.”
Marco Pappa is a 23 year-old midfielder who has 18 goals in 80 league appearances for Municipal and (mainly) Chicago Fire, and he has 3 goals in 16 games for the Guatemalan national side.
I have doubts as to whether we are even interested in him at all to be honest, although he would seem to fit our recruitment profile of being young and (probably) cheap to buy and maintain.
And since I can hear you all reciting the Anti Nowhere League’s ‘So What’ in response to this article, I claim the prize for most useless bit of news for the day.
Actually he’s a very good player and a stand out performer in the MLS. Much like Donavan was and he did very well in the EPL. I would be pleased to see Pappa at Newcastle but not if he were our last signing. WE need a quality striker fast!!!