{"id":30898,"date":"2015-01-22T11:24:46","date_gmt":"2015-01-22T16:24:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/?p=30898"},"modified":"2015-01-22T11:25:30","modified_gmt":"2015-01-22T16:25:30","slug":"source-soares-deal-with-verona-imminent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/?p=30898","title":{"rendered":"Source: Soares Deal with Verona Imminent"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Photo<\/a>

Photo credit: Kari Heistad\/capturedimages.biz<\/p><\/div>\n

The A.J. Soares-to-Serie A saga is nearing its conclusion as Hellas Verona are expected to sign him\u00a0on a free transfer\u00a0in the coming days, according to\u00a0a source.<\/p>\n

The source – who has direct knowledge of the\u00a0pending transaction –\u00a0confirmed with New England Soccer Today<\/em>\u00a0that\u00a0talks are ongoing, and that\u00a0“it’s a matter of getting him signed, sealed, and delivered.\u201d<\/p>\n

Soares\u2019 agent, Mike Gartlan, did not immediately return a message left for him by New England Soccer Today<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Should\u00a0Soares sign with Verona, he will be the first Revolution player to go directly to Serie A from MLS without being capped by the U.S. National Team.\u00a0Regardless, it’s clear that\u00a0Verona could use the 2014 Revolution Defender of the Year.<\/p>\n

The Italian outfit is\u00a0particularly\u00a0thin in the\u00a0back at the moment. They currently have the distinction of owning the\u00a0fourth-worst defense in Serie A, with\u00a0a\u00a0recent\u00a04-0\u00a0thrashing\u00a0handed to them\u00a0by\u00a0Juventus serving as the latest reminder of that statistic. On paper, Soares\u2019 addition should stem the bleeding, while also giving Verona a central defender who\u2019s both confident and effective in the air on both sides of the ball.<\/p>\n

News of\u00a0the\u00a0veteran center back’s\u00a0intention to move to Serie A was\u00a0originally reported by KickTV<\/em>‘s Jimmy Conrad\u00a0shortly after the Revolution’s 2-1 MLS Cup final loss to the LA Galaxy. Gartlan hinted at Soares\u2019 departure, though not his next destination, in a Dec. 14 tweet that pictured Soares at a \u201cwedding\/going away party.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the time, Soares\u2019 lack of international experience was reason enough for some to write this move off as a rumor. Further doubt\u00a0was cast after developments surrounding the reported move slowed to a trickle in the weeks after Conrad’s tweet.<\/p>\n

Last week,\u00a0a source told New England Soccer Today<\/em> that Soares would return to the Revolution in 2015, and that formal contact hadn\u2019t yet been made by Verona.\u00a0A day later,\u00a0SBISoccer.com’s<\/em> Ives Galarcep tweeted that the deal was still on.<\/p>\n

The same source then said that an approach had been made, though no deal was finalized, citing impending negotiations and scheduling conflicts. Soares and Gartlan have both kept quiet since Conrad’s initial report, as has Verona, whose press office declined to comment on the deal on behalf of general manager Sean Sogliano and head of communications Fabrizio Cometti.<\/p>\n

The Revolution has said very little, too. When asked about Soares\u2019 absence from the posted roster, a club spokesman\u00a0advised that\u00a0the former first-round pick\u00a0was no longer under contract, and could not confirm whether he would re-sign with the club or a different team.<\/p>\n

For a player that has a European passport\u2014and can thus dodge the bureaucratic paperwork often associated with foreign player transactions in European markets \u2014 the protracted nature of the negotiations has raised more than a few eyebrows. Verona lost a central defender to another Serie A team\u00a0during the current\u00a0transfer window, and injuries have\u00a0left their back line decimated.<\/p>\n

Should Soares return Stateside, the Revolution will hold his MLS rights as he was offered a new contract prior to his departure.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A.J. Soares is expected to finalize a deal with Hellas Verona in the coming days, according to a source. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":30922,"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":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[3],"tags":[77,891,937,49,888,938,892],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nesoccertoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/AJ-1.png?fit=600%2C415","jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30898"}],"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\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=30898"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30898\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30928,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30898\/revisions\/30928"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/30922"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=30898"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=30898"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=30898"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}