{"id":12862,"date":"2012-06-15T00:18:01","date_gmt":"2012-06-15T04:18:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/?p=12862"},"modified":"2012-06-16T23:31:42","modified_gmt":"2012-06-17T03:31:42","slug":"victory-strike-pessanha-europe-bound","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/?p=12862","title":{"rendered":"Victory’s Pessanha Europe-Bound"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Victory striker Lucas Pessanha (center) will get the chance to play Europa League football after signing with Estonian side FC Levadia this week. (Photo: Chris Aduama\/aduama.com)<\/p><\/div>\n

QUINCY, Mass. \u2013 Five weeks after scoring one of the most dramatic goals in Boston Victory\u2019s brief history, forward Lucas Pessanha is packing his bags for Europe.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, the 21-year-old Brazilian signed a deal with Estonian first division side FC Levadia,\u00a0a club\u00a0slated to play in the Europa League during the 2012\/13 season.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a great opportunity for him,\u201d Boston head coach Sergio Taborda said after Wednesday\u2019s game. \u201cIt\u2019s great exposure. He\u2019s a great player and he deserves it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pessanha arrived in Boston in March after a stint with Floriana FC (Malta), and immediately proved himself in the team\u2019s inaugural game.<\/p>\n

In the waning minutes of a 1-1\u00a0contest against CFC Azul on May 5, Pessanha scored the game-winner in the 90th minute to lift the Victory to their first win in franchise history.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a great goal, an important goal,\u201d Pessanha said. \u201cIt was a great memory for me here in Boston.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although it proved to be the only goal he’d score in seven games with the Victory this season, the ambitious attacker did enough to catch the attention of FC Levadia, who swooped in to sign him him\u00a0earlier this\u00a0week.<\/p>\n

With the opportunity to play in the Europa League, it\u2019s no surprise that Pessanha is excited to open the next chapter of his career.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s going to be a very good experience for me,\u201d Pessanha said. \u201cIt\u2019s a very good league that I (hope) I can show well in for other clubs. Since I was a kid, I\u2019ve always dreamed about it. I\u2019m really happy about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

In his final appearance for Boston, the\u00a0baby-faced forward\u00a0flashed his potential in front of the Victory faithful one final time. Against the same Azul side he stole three points from\u00a0in the season opener, Pessanha pressured the defense with probing runs. He combined well with Andrew Sousa\u00a0 inside the attacking third. But this time around, he couldn\u2019t will his team to win.<\/p>\n

After the game, teammates, coaches and fans all wished him well. He\u2019s excited. Any footballer in his boots would be. But at the same time, Pessanha reflected on what he\u2019ll miss the most about playing in Boston.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe guys – they were so friendly,\u201d Pessanha said. \u201cI\u2019m really happy here, but I had to (seize) the chance to go overseas.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Boston is losing one of its best players, Taborda, who played professionally in Portugal, isn\u2019t bitter. He understands the game. And because of that, he couldn\u2019t help but give his blessing to the journey Pessanha is about to embark on.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wish him all the best,\u201d Taborda said. \u201cI will follow his career and we wish him all the success in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Boston Victory forward Lucas Pessanha is headed to Estonian side FC Levadia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"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":[85],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12862"}],"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=12862"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12862\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12902,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12862\/revisions\/12902"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12862"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12862"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12862"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}