Tuesday, August 7, 2007

Danny Szetela to AS ROMA!

Milling around Ives Galarcep's neck of the blogosphere woods, you are always guaranteed to get a little piece of juicy news. This morning was no different.Found this article, Italy in Szetela's Future for North Jersey Herald News. It basically stipulates that the U-20 World Cup star and Clifton, NJ native has reached a pre-contractual agreement with Serie A powers AS Roma after his MLS contract with the Columbus Crew runs out on December 31st, 2007. The Serie A - great - but is Roma going to guarantee him any playing time whatsoever? He will most likely be loaned out to a Siena, Ascoli, Parma or Palermo (all who were in to snap him up in the first place).

Szetela joins fellow NY/NJ native, Gabe Ferrari in the Serie A - Ferrari plies his trade for Sampdoria. Furthermore, he joins both Sal Zizzo and Freddy Adu in 'going European' as Zizzo is at Hannover 96 in the Bundesliga now and Adu went to Benfica of the Portuguese SuperLiga.
The IMG product also had interest from other world leagues - Everton, Galatasaray, Rangers, and FC Sion all had submitted transfer inquiries to the MLS front office. When it all boils down - you really can't frown upon this move and his reinvigorated performances with US U-20s made it happen. It's just a shame that Columbus couldn't have reaped the benefits in his 4-year stay in Columbus. The deal should be finalized in the next week or two and, as always, things can go awry.

Who's next from that U-20 squad to go? Chris Seitz? Tony Beltran? Ofori Sarkodie? etc.

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