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The Atiba Situation


Dandal

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Just thought I'd start a thread for myself to post transfer news and rumours on canadians in Sweden.

Todays news: Atiba Hutchinson will leave Öster, according to just relegated Öster's management. "He's too good to play in swedish 1st division", they stated yesterday. Still according to Öster, seven (7) different swedish premier division sides has approached the club asking permission to start talks with Atiba. The only club named is AIK, traditional swedish powerhouse that finished fifth this season after a disappointing second half. From abroad Manchester City is the only club so far showing serious interest. Might be complicated though, since Atiba is a self-declared United fan ;)

Atiba himself says that he'll probably stay with a premier division side in Sweden one more year. He thinks it is a good place to develop before moving on to bigger things. He also says it's important for him to come to a club where he will get a lot of playing time.

And yes, there is a movie quote hidden in the subject line [8D]

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quote:Originally posted by Rudi

Pulp Fiction?

Correctamundo!

And back to business:

Jamie Peters, the 16 year old on Canada's olympic team who just returned from a week long try-out with Östers IF, now has an offer from the club to join as a trainee. The club has a program that will let Peters complete his high school education while training football at a professional level. Peters impressed highly on Öster's management. They call him "extremely talented" and also reveals that Manchester City wanted to sign Peters, but ran into the usual work permit obstacles.

I've earlier posted that Chris Pozniak has an offer from his club Örebro SK to renew his contract, but has yet not made up his mind. Now there are rumours (and I'd like to stress rumours) that Pozniak will leave Sweden for England. This is completely uncorroborated, but still interesting.

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No disrespect to Osters, but if Peters is so talented and Man City wanted him I would have thought it would be better for him to head to Germany or France (or even the Netherlands) and catch on with a top level side there. Can Osters actually offer him anything much better than he could get by staying in Canada? Who is his agent anyway?

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There are a lot of good youth programmes with a lot of european clubs. Bigger clubs don't necessarily have better programmes than smaller ones. The swedish experience is that sending away young kids, Jamie Peters age, to clubs abroad is hazardous. I think Atiba's experience with the environment at Öster, not only or even mainly the footballing environment, has been important. But yes, you can certainly find better youth programmes in Europe. If Peters ends up with Öster it will be much because of Atiba's influence.

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Atiba's swedish agent Patrick Mörk was today interviewed by the swedish football news site fotbolldirekt.com. He said that now ten of the swedish 14 premier division teams has shown interest in Atiba. Atiba himself is most interested in the Stockholm club AIK, which he think is a cool club with great match atmosphere. A plus is that the team has a english coach, Richard Money.

Some danish clubs has also shown interest. But Mörck doubts Atiba will make a move to an equivalent league when he has become acclimatized in Sweden just because it might pay a little more.

Mörck also said that Atiba probably won't make any decisions until after the FIFA World Youth Championship. With a good run there even more clubs might show interest.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Short update:

AIK management says on Atiba Hutchinson that he is to expensive for that kind of player. Presently they need a couple of good defenders and a seasoned attacker. But if they lose one of their midfielders, swedish U21 player Stefan Ishizaki might be going abroad, they will try to sign Atiba as a replacement. Another club, Landskrona Bois, has also backed out because a transfer would be to expensive. Helsingborgs IF on the other hand, one of the swedish top 5 sides, has made an undisclosed offer to Atiba's club Östers IF. Still most probably nothing will be decided until after the FIFA World Youth Championship.

Chris Pozniak is still looking on his opportunities to go abroad. His present club, Örebro SK, says he has to make up his mind soon, or they'll withdraw their offer for a new contract.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Nothing much, but:

AIK's young midfielder Stefan Ishizaki is currently on a try-out with Anderlecht. If that will result in a transfer to the belgian club, there will be a spot for Atiba Hutchinson in AIK.

By the way, the offer from Helsingborg I mentioned earlier is supposed to by something like $500K. I can't see that the price tag in a domestic transfer will be much higher than that and I think even an international transfer will cost less than $1M. Does anybody know if the Lynx have any stake to claim in a transfer?

Both Atiba and Kenny Stamatopoulos got Player of the Year-awards at their respective clubs end-of-season festivities.

Chris Pozniak still hasn't decided on his future, but it seems like Örebro's offer still is open. Haven't heard anything on the contrary at least.

Adam Braz has disappeared completely of my radar, no mention of him anywhere for over a month.

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quote:Originally posted by An Observer

No disrespect to Osters, but if Peters is so talented and Man City wanted him I would have thought it would be better for him to head to Germany or France (or even the Netherlands) and catch on with a top level side there. Can Osters actually offer him anything much better than he could get by staying in Canada? Who is his agent anyway?

I believe the agents for both Atiba and Peters is from the Waterloo area he is one of the Fifa agents in Cananda, Look on teh fifa web site under players agent and you will find him.

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quote:Originally posted by Dandal

Just thought I'd start a thread for myself to post transfer news and rumours on canadians in Sweden.

[8D]

Although not about a player going to Sweden, I've heard that Wojtek (previous u-20 keeper) is heading to germany and poland to trial with a bundesliga club and pro polish club respectively.

hopefully he can get back into europe and our national team setup

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Thank you for that non "Atiba Situation" update. That player would be Wojtek Zarczyki (pardon the spelling) who was with Werder Bremen's youth system a couple of years ago, played with the Storm in the summer of 2002 (on loan from Hamilton of the CPSL). A very good kid. I wish him the best of luck in his trials.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Chris Pozniak, last two seasons with swedish premier side Örebro SK, is leaving the club. He appearently wanted to look at other opportunities before deciding on an offer from the club, but Örebro tired of waiting and has now withdrawn the offer. Pozniak, who thanks to his dual polish-canadian citizenship will have a EU passport when Poland joins the union april next year, wants to continue playing in Europe and has been talking to two (name undisclosed) scottish premier league clubs, according to an interview in the local Örebro newspaper.

In the same interview it is said that Niki Budalic presently is on trial in Germany.

Atiba Hutchinson (Keep up the good work in YWC!!) is one of the top names on danish premier side AGF's newly appointed manager's wish-list for 2004. The manager, Sören Åkeby, coached swedish champions Djurgården 2002 and 2003 and knows Atiba's qualities.

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Thanks for the news Dandal. Good luck to Chris Pozniak.

It was reported in the Toronto Star this morning that 4 players on Canada's U20 team have drawn the interest of "big" European clubs, & may be moving to them after the tourney ends. Coach Dale Mitchell wouldn't say who the players are until after the tourney ends for Canada, but it wouldn't surprise me if Atiba is one of them.

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Here is the article but its by Norm Da Costa so i am not sure I trust the source.

Cash, key hirings lead to success

NORMAN DA COSTA

Few expected Canada's under-20 squad to get out of its pool, let alone make it to the quarter-finals of the world youth championship in the United Arab Emirates.

Coach Dale Mitchell, possibly the best midfielder this country has produced, said prior to the championship that every member of the team would have to raise his game if Canada was to make it out of the pool that included Brazil, Czech Republic and Australia.

The players obviously responded in grand style. Now they will have to take it a notch higher tomorrow when Canada meets European powerhouse Spain for a place in the semifinals.

Canada goes into the game as huge underdogs. That is no surprise when one considers that the majority of the Spaniards play for top clubs in their country.

The last time Canada ventured out of its pool was way back in 1967 in Malaysia, but its run ended in the round of 16 when it was upended 2-0 by none other than the Spaniards.

Win or lose, Canada has left its mark on the championship which FIFA considers its second most important tourney after the World Cup.

Some of the world's greatest players launched their professional careers after being spotted at the youth championship which started in 1977. They include Diego Maradona, Dutchman Marco Van Basten, Portugal's Luis Figo, France's Thiery Henry and England's Michael Owen.

At least four Canadian players have already made a huge impression on the many scouts who have converged in the Emirates and should shortly land employment with well-known European clubs.

Mitchell wouldn't identify the players until the tournament ends, but the fact that Canada was scouted is good news for Canadian soccer.

After years of mediocrity, Canadian soccer has taken big strides since 2000 with the men's team under coach Holger Osieck winning the Gold Cup, the country's first major silverware. Not to be outdone, the women captured the hearts of the nation in reaching the final of the under-19 world championship in 2001, only to lose in overtime to the U.S.

The national women's team reached the final of the Gold Cup, again losing to the U.S. on a golden goal.

But their biggest success came earlier this year when the women's team confirmed itself among the top countries in the world by reaching the World Cup semifinals.

On the men's side, the under-23 squad has reached the final round of qualifying for a place in the Athens Olympics and the under-17 boys just missed a place in the finals of that age group in Finland after going out on goal difference.

Kevan Pipe, chief executive officer of the CSA, says that the pieces are now falling in place as a result of the extra infusion of cash into the national programs that began two years ago.

The CSA receives $6 from each of the 800,000 registered players — from the grassroots level to the senior leagues — and Pipe believes that has made the difference.

Hiring the right people like Mitchell, Bruce Twamley (under-23). Ian Bridge (women's under-19) and national women's technical director and coach Even Pellerud has also gone a long way in lifting standards.

CSA's 2004 budget for national teams will to up to $13 million next year, and that has doubled in the last six years.

Now it is the turn of the men's World Cup team that gets a new coach next week to try to emulate the success of the others.

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With comments like the "way back in 1967" (when the same article mentions that the tourney started in 1977) it is easy not to trust completely everything Norm writes. He is usually off with re-counting facts, rather than finding new info, especially as in this case I think he's getting his info from Mitchell, so there's probably truth to it, but I'm not sure how "well-known" these European clubs will turn out to be.

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I was interested, intrigued even, by Forest last night on Soccer Central stating that Attiba was playing centre back and note that since the change, Canada has not allowed a goal against two pretty good teams. Perhaps, if he is attracting the attention of "Big Clubs" it will be inthis position as well. A potential partner for DeVos?

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quote:Originally posted by An Observer

interesting...that means one of Harmse, Arrango and Marshal are playing midfield. Probably Harmse as I think he's played there before and he also had a chance on goal in the Czech game I believe which didn't seem to be from a set piece.

Or possibly Assante. It is a 4-4-2 instead of the 3-5-2 they started with. Harmse I suppose is most likely as Bruno replaced him in the last game.

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I could have sworn he said that Atiba is playing "Centre Half", but you may be right, since there would be no real point in drawing attention to the fact that Atiba plays centre half, since that's his regular position.

(How's that for a run-on sentence?)

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