by Tony Attwood
With Wellington Silva joining us full time in January, Arsenal are stepping up the South and Central American connection.
Samuel Galindo is Arsenal’s latest transfer costing €500,000. He is Bolivian, captain of the under 20s, he is 6′ 3″ tall, left footed, an attacking midfielder who can play either in the centre, behind a striker, or on the wing.
According to Young Guns who know everything, he has signed a four year contract. But he doesn’t have a work permit so he will be going to Spain to play for Celta Vigo, and then get an EU passport. There was previous talk of him going to Salamanca.
Galindo has been training with Arsenal since the start of the year, but was then the subject of a media campaign in which it was alleged he was not the age he claimed be. But apparently everyone is now happy, so we have him.
Meanwhile Arsenal are having a bash at getting a work permit for the Brazilian Pedro Botelho. He has spent three years in Spain and has got his EU citizenship – he’s now 20.
Last season he played 27 times for Celta Vigo who reached the quarter-finals of the Copa Del Rey, despite being a second division team. They beat Villareal during the run.
But, there may be a Botelho Problem, as he seems to have left both Celta and Salamanca under a cloud.
Now two names pop up here and there in this: Celta Vigo and Salamanca. And given that we’ve been pondering what the hell is going on with the reserves (with their sudden cessation and all) could it be that we are actually going to do something big time with several clubs – one in France for all our French kiddies, and one or two in Spain for the central and south Americans who have to play there to get an EU passport?
That could be what is going on, so without more fuss, here’s a quickie (that is a run down of Celta Vigo.)
R.C. Celta de Vigo was formed as a combination of teams who could compete more vigorously in the league. Real Vigo Sporting and Real Club Fortuna de Vigo were merged in 1923 as Real Club Celta.
Their best moments came between 1997 and 2001 when they were a top six side, and managed to beat Liverpool and Juve on their Euro adventures.
But as can happen, it ended in tears. They finished 2003/4 fourth in the League, qualified for The Champs League and reached the last 16 where we played them. But meanwhile they fell apart in the League and got relegated. Next season they came back up.
The following season they got into the UEFA cup but by 2006/7 they were failing again and got relegated and were on the edge of administration.
They have struggled on and finished 12th last season.
This position – a mid-table second division club just wanting to survive could be exactly what we need. No pretentious behaviour, just plugging away and trying to secure the funds to keep going, this is what we need.
Of course relationships with Celta have been around for several years – Vela went there remember, and wasn’t Silvinho there too? – but I am not too sure that many others have done so since then.
I’ve got nothing more than this to go on – so it might well all be a load of tosh, but well, it could it also be true. One thing is sure, the Celta-Arsenal link has been around for quite a few years and in the second division Celta need all the help they can get.
Untold Arsenal. Not always accurate, but still, who is?
Rundown of our squad for the new season, with the up and coming kiddies included
hope it is true. with the youths getting the technical knowledge and no reserves it sounds like an even better idea than keepin the reserves to me. they’l be even more experienced and competitive. i think the whole loan system works on many levels. now we’l have even more going out helping teams to do well which will strengthen our position even more in terms of negotiations. but will also help the team more efficiently, its project youth on speed. imagine the talent tht’l be coming through on a regular basis in 5yrs! the competion will be rife coupled with the profits we’l be making. it gives me goosebumps.
I believe, Tony, that our reserves need more football and Celta and some other off-shore teams sound good.
Is there any way that promising players used this way can be brought back rapidly in the case of injuries to our squad? I know it’s usual to let them go on, for example, half-season loans and also that we may not have many injuries next season (or thereafter), but can a come-back clause be included in loans?
This wouldn’t be a bad option. It would give the players more playing time and on a higher level.
I think you can inlcude come-back clauses but I think that AW is against such things. I think he is of the opinion that you have to respect the club that gets the loan player. And it could disrupt their league campaign and just my thoughts, but I think that if AW lets a player on loan for 6 months or a year it will be 6 months or a year.
On the other hand how comes that we have to send our players always on loan for a few years before they can come to England and other clubs seem to always get an exception?
galindo signed for the gunners in january and arsenal are currently trying to secure a work permit for him and botelho under the outstanding talent ruling. Arsenal also signed a links deal with celta vigo three seasons ago, hence alot of our young guns heading there in the last few seasons.
Hi Tony, always enjoy what you write even if the whiskey mack makes it`s presence felt at times…only kidding.
Outside of your articles why is it that the more sensible and reliable information seems to come from the Birmingham Mail, the Islington Gazette offers nothing.
How does these links with other clubs work? Arsenal doesn’t share to much info about it. The only club I remeber beeing mentiond on Arsenal.com is Colorado Rapids and some club or academy in Vietnam. Does anyone know what kind of exchanges we have with Colorado Rapids? I don’t recall any kiddies going on loan there. A piece on this could be interesting.
Robbie, I think the Vietnam and Colorado deals are quite different, giving us a way of being visible in the respective countries, but not actually a way of exchanging players.
I still don’t get the decision about the reserves – unless it is the unbalanced nature of the league that has been the problem. You have teams like Arsenal and Man U using the reserves as a league for the kids who are half way between the youth side and the first team squad, while some teams like Tottenham used the reserves to play their out of favour players like Bentley. So the matches could be very ill-matched.
But young players need games as well as training don’t they?
If the old system was
Youth squad
Reserve squad
Loanees
First team squad
at the moment we have just taken one level out. Are we really going to be able to put more and more players out on loan? It was 15 or so last season – could we logically take that up to 30?
And what happens to Neil Bamford’s job?
just a thought: wasnt vela at salamanca?
Watched galindo at the U17 WC in 2009 … outstanding talent for an apparent 16 year old. Definite satndout for me based on what I saw. That Bolivian team was actually quite decent and you might see them emerge in teh next 4 years or so.
Anywyay, at that age its difficult to say what will happen but the ability is definitely there.
If you don’t rate Roque Santa Cruz then fair enough but Galindo looks to be in a similar mould but with more creativity. His stamina looked good too but filling out physique-wise means he might lose some mobility.