TARGETING THE DAYNES CUP
Upon winning the English Premier League, Chelsea went shopping for the best talents to improve the team and ensure it remains at the top for a long time. Among other purchases, Chelsea paid about 38 million dollars for the rights to Shaun Wright-Phillips, a natural winger who starred for Manchester City in recent years. The Club is close to reaching a staggering 50 million dollars agreement with Olympique Lyon, the reigning D1 French Champion, to obtain the services of Ghanaian midfielder Michael Essein.
Other teams in the EPL are spending as wildly hoping to stay in Chelsea’s winning wake next season. Arsenal, Mancheter United, Liverpool, Everton and less successful English teams such as Tottenham Hotspurs, Bolton and Aston Villa are spending great funds to strengthen their squads.
In Spain, having failed to win a major trophy in two years, Real Madrid has been very active in the transfer market as well. It recently signed Brazilian prodigy Robinho from Pele’s old club, Santos, for 30 million dollars, and completed the transfer of Julio “The Beast” Batista, a player who scored 50 goals in all competitions for Valencia in just two years on the team’s books.
Robinho and Batista are only two of the big names Real Madrid added to a squad already featuring David Beckman, Zinadine Zidane, Ronaldo and Raul. It is expected they will soon make a bold move for England defender Rio Ferdinand. To make room for its new stars, the side will not hesitate to show the door to former World Player of the Year Luis Figo and England striker Michael Owen. That’s football!
So it should not surprise anyone that Olympique Montreux must radically improve the team after being promoted to the Premiership. The competition will be much more difficult. The Utah Open Cup games taught OM that to compete in the Premiership, it must make painful decisions. OM may have to leave behind a Figo or two. That’s football.
It was a well-known joke that many of the players who competed for OM last spring actually played in several other leagues. For example, one of the players, Erick “Teba” Morales, was pulling superman stunts performing for at least four teams from Salt Lake to West Valley to Provo to Ogden to Logan. That’s too much soccer, even for a player of Teba’s admirable talents! Eduardo “Lalo” Maldonado was kind enough to give us some games while actually a star performer for top team Paisano of the Liga Latinoamericana.
After the lessons learned in 2002 when OM’s Bosnian captain Adis Alagic and others left to form their own teams, the side cannot remain passive at this crucial time. It must open its doors to, hopefully, some of the best young talents in the State.
With Team Assistant Manager Greg Pulver’s many connections, OM was able to capture the coveted signature of K.C. Nordfors, the most prolific goal scorer in the region. Others players, on their own volition, soon expressed a desire to join team. The energetic Mike Polich brought with him several top players such as Art and Hugh Van Wagenen, Jake Cavanaugh, Mike Rogers, Jeremy Jones, Aaron Bruderer, Chad Bartlett, Jesse Day, Matt Wolley, and Sergio Velasquez, a stricker with an excellent reputation for finding the net in impossible situations.
OM also kept some of the old guard, Sean O’Brien, Homero Tafolla, Josue Fererra, Josh Kimball...
With the mix of old and new, it is clear that Olympique Montreux has done all it can to pack much weight in the upcoming campaign. Hopefully, the team will lift silverware soon.
Why not start with the Daynes Cup?
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