Ante Coric

I think that his hype came from Manager games and Fifa games.
In reality he is nowhere near to that video-game level and potential.

And due to a fact that current Croatian midfielders are Modric and Rakitic.
So, people thought: if he will be even close to them, he will be awesome.

So he's pretty much an Alen Halilovic v2 by the looks of it.

He was linked with a number of top teams with rumors that Real was sniffing around for him and even looked destined for a move at City at one point. But it seems Monchi trying to is the usual hipster transfer thing took the bait and went with Coric.

Could end up being a decent loss for Roma if he doesn't impress, it's like a couple of years ago when they thought it would be a brilliant idea to spend 20 Million on the likes of Gerson because we wanted him as well.

Coric has joined Almeria on loan. Looks like he's a bit smarter than Halilović and has done a step back (gone to a club in the lower division) and will try to get his career back on track after failing at Roma.

BTW, Almeria have signed some interesting young players ower the last month since they have a new owner from Saudi Arabia.

[tw]1167104625503137792[/tw]

Just today they've announced the signing of young Uruguayan striker Darwin Nunez for a club record transfer fee 8M€ which is a lot for a Segunda division team. Looks like their Sheikh is prepared to invest in the team and he wants a quick promotion to La Liga. Let's hope they won't end up in the same situation as Malaga in a few years though.

what about non-eu?? its not the same in segunda?

stk93 said:

what about non-eu?? its not the same in segunda?

Click to expand...

IIRC they can have only 2 non-EU players.

According to TM Darwin Nunez and Jonathan are taking Almeria's non-EU spots. Vada is also having an Italian passport as many Argentinians.

Another new signing for Almeria this season is former La Masia RB Ivan Balliu. BTW, he's playing for Albanian NT but only has two caps so far. He made his debut in October 2017 (interestingly against Spain) and then he also played in March this year vs Turkey.

Messi983 said:

BTW, Almeria have signed some interesting young players ower the last month since they have a new owner from Saudi Arabia.

Just today they've announced the signing of young Uruguayan striker Darwin Nunez for a club record transfer fee 8M€ which is a lot for a Segunda division team. Looks like their Sheikh is prepared to invest in the team and he wants a quick promotion to La Liga. Let's hope they won't end up in the same situation as Malaga in a few years though.

Click to expand...

Not any Sheikh, it is freakin Turki Al-Sheikh who is a close friend to MBS, the de facto ruler of KSA.
He bought an Egyptian club a year ago, and heavily challenged El Ahly & Zamalek who are the established historical rivals in Egyptian league . He has a sort of endless resources as he is supported by KSA itself.
But, after one year he got tired of his toy (he was widely hated in Egypt because of it) and sold it and bought Almeria.
I think they will do make some noise, but won't last that long.
BTW, I think Malaga benefited tremendously from the Qatari experience

khaled_a_d said:

Not any Sheikh, it is freakin Turki Al-Sheikh who is a close friend to MBS, the de facto ruler of KSA.
He bought an Egyptian club a year ago, and heavily challenged El Ahly & Zamalek who are the established historical rivals in Egyptian league . He has a sort of endless resources as he is supported by KSA itself.
But, after one year he got tired of his toy (he was widely hated in Egypt because of it) and sold it and bought Almeria.
I think they will do make some noise, but won't last that long.
BTW, I think Malaga benefited tremendously from the Qatari experience

Click to expand...

Thanks, didn't know this. Let's hope he has serious ambitions and will stay at Almeria for more than a year.

It worked well for Malaga at the start when they qualified and played very well in the CL but Al Thani probably had too high expectations to compete for the titles in La Liga and when he saw this is impossible short term he sold the best players and stopped investing in the team. IIRC he also wanted to build some hotels in Malaga but local authorities rejected him and that probably played a role in his decision as well. Right now Malaga's situation is pretty bad.

navidjaan said:

Could develop into a perfect Iniesta replacement. The body faints of this kid are ridiculous.

Click to expand...

From Iniesta's replacement to being semi-retired aged 26.

He is a free agent currently, nobody wants him.

Schadenfreude.