South Americans in Coca Cola Championship – part I

There is not a lot of them and they are not some excellent, top class footballers cause they wouldn’t be in the second league. Still, it is interesting to see who are those ‘wizards with ball’ who agreed to play in Coca Cola Championship, a competition featured by a lot of running, hard, difficult fight and fierce duels often going beyond reason.

Miguel Mostto

If you think that a club with most South Americans, is always a successful one, then you are awfully wrong. Barnsley have even nine of them, and it still didn’t help avoiding the current 21st place and another season of tough relegation fight. Miguel Mostto is the first of them, Peruvian midfielder with a superb technical abilities, excellent shooter and great set-pieces taker. Still, despite some fabulous last season’s goals, Simon Davey didn’t give him the right chance and he returned to Peru this October due to personal, family matters. Officially, he is still the member of Yorkshire club.

Another one, who is even more illustrious, is Brazilian Anderson Silva, midfielder who, ever since 2004, had a successful year in Racing Santander (30 games and 5 goals) behind him, then a period in Everton without the right chance to prove himself, while he had an excellent last season as loaned player in Barnsley. This year, he signed for Tykes, had a difficult hamstring injury, and he has just recovered from it. Another highly successful Barnsley member is Brazilian defender, Dennis Souza, first team regular, player adored by Reds’ fans and a lad who caught an eye of Newcastle scouts this summer.

Still, Burnsley’s best player in the years to come should be this summer’s arrival from Argentine Newells Old Bots, Hugo Colace, fantastic defensive-midfielder and former member of Argentine U21 national team led by Carlos Tevez. He didn’t have the right chance to prove his worth in the anemic team from the small Yorkshire town just yet.

Adriano Basso

Adriano Basso is currently the only Brazilian keeper in England and he has been with Bristol City for four years. His great saves, and his committed performances made him an irreplaceable asset of Robins’ first team, while the fans elected him as the best player of their team last year. He is known for his acrobatic moves and the constant feedback with fans during the game, he initially came to England because of his wife, had an unsuccessful trial period in Arsenal, then played for Woking and, in 2005, he settled at Ashton Gate.

His serious rival among the goalies from South America in the Championship is the Argentine keeper playing for Crystal Palace, Julian Speroni. After the successful three-year spell with Scottish Dundee, Speroni moved to London because of the financial problems in his former club. He had an off start at Selhurst Park, his famous attempts to dribble past the rivals made him guilty for several defeats. For the next two seasons, he was the replacement for the famous Hungarian keeper, Gabor Kiraly, got his chance last year and earned a lot of plaudits, made the player of the year by the fans in 2007/08. His manager Neil Warnock claims he wouldn’t replace him for any Premier League goalie…

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