Espanyol Reloads With Ahumada

Mauri­cio Pochet­tino showed off his vast knowl­edge of the game by sug­gest­ing names from South Amer­ica as poten­tial rein­force­ments for the team as they try to bat­tle against relegation.

Accord­ing to Friday’s dig­i­tal edi­tion of Sport, Los Peri­cos agreed to terms with embat­tled River Plate mid­fielder Oscar Ahu­mada.   The arti­cle states that the Espanyol mid­field would ben­e­fit from Ahumada’s men­tal tough­ness and lead­er­ship on and off the pitch.  Ahumada’s his­tory at River Plate was quite “col­or­ful” to say the least, but his pas­sion could not be put in question.

There is a fine line between brav­ery and insan­ity, and the for­mer Wolfs­burg loa­nee crossed it in an effort to rally the club.  In the grand scheme of things, his oiut­burst was a  short-term fix to a long-term prob­lem.  His com­ments after River Plate’s elim­i­na­tion from last year’s Copa Lib­er­ta­dores at the hands of  a nine-man San Lorenzo side brought the wrath of the Mil­lonario fans down on him like heav­enly justice.

Worst of all, he did the absolute worst, he pretty much said that Boca Juniors fans were more pas­sion­ate than them.   The writ­ing was on the wall for the River Plate mid­fielder at that point.  Both sides for­gave but did not for­get.  At the same time it became a ral­ly­ing point for the team as they went on a tear en route to their 33rd domes­tic title, but the taste of vic­tory lasted very lit­tle in the mouths of the River Plate fans.

Their last-place fin­ish in the pre­vi­ous Aper­tura tour­na­ment accen­tu­ated every­thing that was bad at that club, yet Ahu­mada was one of the few spo­radic bright spots of a team that all of a sud­den lost its way and its coach in a mat­ter of months.  The worst part of it all was that after all of this ordeal, Ahu­mada was recently named team cap­tain at River Plate.

In addi­tion to Ahu­mada, Espanyol should also expect the arrival of Mur­cia for­ward Iván Alonso.  This acqui­si­tion helps shore up the blan­quiazul attack which is ranked among one of the poor­est in La Liga.

The bad news for Cata­lans is that they were not able to land the player that is cur­rently South America’s hottest com­mod­ity. Colo Colo goal scorer Lucas Bar­rios will not be com­ing to the Mon­tjuic as the reign­ing Chilean champs did not agree on the terms of pay­ment for the player.