{"id":10506,"date":"2012-03-22T00:21:47","date_gmt":"2012-03-22T04:21:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/?p=10506"},"modified":"2012-03-22T00:56:05","modified_gmt":"2012-03-22T04:56:05","slug":"the-long-hello","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/?p=10506","title":{"rendered":"The Long Hello"},"content":{"rendered":"

After a wait that’s lasted nearly seven weeks, Jose Moreno is expected to report to the\u00a0Revolution on Thursday and\u00a0participate\u00a0in Friday’s training, according to\u00a0the team’s staff writer.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday,\u00a0Revolution staff writer\/online host Jeff Lemieux tweeted<\/a> that Moreno, who was announced as the team’s new number 9 on Feb. 2,\u00a0and newly-acquired defender Flo Lechner are expected to arrive in Boston on Thursday. If all goes according to plan, both would be eligible to play in Saturday’s home opener against Portland, “pending fitness and health.”<\/p>\n

Moreno, who recently played with Colombian club Once Caldas, signed a loan agreement to play for New England in early-February\u00a0and was due in Foxboro by Mar. 1. At least, that was the plan.<\/p>\n

But shortly after his signing was announced, he reportedly told the official website of the Colombian first division that it was his desire to remain with Once Caldas. A team spokesperson stated shortly thereafter that the Revolution organization was “surprised” by Moreno’s comments.<\/p>\n

A week later,\u00a0Moreno stepped onto the pitch with the club and played 55 minutes before coming off with an apparent ankle injury. And for all intents and purposes, it appeared that Moreno’s first priority was the Manizales-based club.<\/p>\n

Despite the fact that Moreno had not only continued to train and play with Once Caldas, Revolution general manager Michael Burns advised that the terms of the loan agreement\u00a0did not preclude Moreno from\u00a0extending his time\u00a0with El Blanco\u00a0<\/em>– at least until Mar. 1. Burns also alluded to the idea that Moreno may have been misquoted in the report that hinted his intent on staying in Colombia.<\/p>\n

But\u00a0once Mar. 1 passed without Moreno in sight, more reasons were given for the striker’s no-show. The team said that Moreno’s estimated time of arrival was contingent upon obtaining his P-1 visa.\u00a0\u00a0But\u00a0shortly after\u00a0he received it,\u00a0Revolution\u00a0president Brian Bilello tweeted\u00a0that the\u00a0Colombian goalscorer\u00a0had been given additional time to\u00a0report\u00a0for what was deemed as a\u00a0“personal matter.”<\/p>\n

In the final analysis, there was nothing to suggest that the 6-0 target forward was prevented from commencing the process well before the official start of his loan deal. And no official reason was ever\u00a0given for the striker’s tardy start to completing the requisite paperwork for his P-1\u00a0visa and\u00a0International Transfer Certificate, which only served to\u00a0draw the ire of Revolution supporters.<\/p>\n

Now, it appears that the\u00a0well-traveled\u00a0striker, who’s bounced from eight different clubs\u00a0in his 13-year career,\u00a0will finally wear the paint-brushed stars and stripes before the end of the week. And the Revolution could certainly use him.<\/p>\n

In the team’s first two matches, New England has yet to score a goal and head coach Jay Heaps has already\u00a0tinkered with four different forwards.<\/p>\n

Although it’s unknown how soon Moreno will be able to contribute, Heaps previously alluded to the idea that he’d like to have Moreno participate in a week’s worth of training before introducing him to match action.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s been 49 days since the Revolution announced the signing of Colombian striker Jose Moreno. On Friday, the target man is finally expected train with his new team.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9104,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nesoccertoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/20120202_moreno_final.jpg?fit=620%2C350","jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10506"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10506"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10506\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10519,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10506\/revisions\/10519"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9104"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10506"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10506"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10506"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}