Monday 23 June 2008

Pablo Zabaleta

The oracular goal.com claims that a deal for Zabaleta is close:

[Zabaleta] has attracted the attention of Manchester City in recent
times.

As.com now reports that Zabaleta is open to a move to Eastlands, treating
this option more seriously than potential moves to Valencia and Fiorentina.

New boss Mark Hughes has previously watched the Argentina international in
action when at Blackburn Rovers, and in his hotseat at City he now seems set to act on that interest.

How exciting! All the attention on Ronaldinho and Jo risks distracting us from the real tasks Hughes faces: keeping hold of the core of the team (Hart, Dunne, Richards, Johnson) and bringing in reinforcements at full back and in midfield.

A look at Zabaleta's wikipedia profile reveals a bit more. Zabaleta captained Argentina U-20s (a team including Messi, Aguero and Gago) to victory in the 2005 Under 20 World Cup. After a €3million transfer to RCD Espanyol in 2005, he won the Copa del Rey in 2006, but was on the losing side of the 2007 UEFA Cup final.

I love this YouTube clip of him I found. Standing his ground in the face of Robinho's trickery, he wins the ball and then gives Robinho some chat. The sort of toughness we could really do with at CoMS.






UPDATE:

Further digging shows that Zabaleta scored the stoppage time winner in the semi final of the 2005 U-20 World Cup, a 2-1 win against Brazil.

No comments: