{"id":31905,"date":"2015-02-23T08:12:14","date_gmt":"2015-02-23T13:12:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/?p=31905"},"modified":"2015-02-23T08:29:12","modified_gmt":"2015-02-23T13:29:12","slug":"soares-signs-with-viking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/?p=31905","title":{"rendered":"Soares Signs with Viking"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Photo<\/a>

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

The A.J. Soares transfer saga has reached its conclusion as the former Revolution center back has signed an 18-month a deal with Viking FK following a successful trial.<\/a><\/p>\n

Soares, who declined to re-sign with the Revolution during the offseason, will join the Tippeligaen outfit ahead of the 2015 regular season. He joined the club on trial two weeks ago, playing in a preseason scrimmage against Valerenga.<\/p>\n

“I could have stayed in the United States,” Soares said at his introductory press conference. “That would have been an easy choice. But to come here, with a new challenge, and try to take a big club like Viking, and try to improve on the last season, and bring the club back up is something I want to do.”<\/p>\n

The 26-year-old center back originally eyed Serie A side Hellas Verona not long after MLS Cup. But negotiations subsequently fell through, and after weeks of radio silence, Soares re-emerged in Norway training with Bob Bradley’s Stabaek side.<\/p>\n

Although Soares made an immediate impression while with Stabaek, scoring a fifth minute goal during a preseason scrimmage on Feb. 4, Bradley quashed any notion that the former Revolution center back was a potential target. Days after his preseason debut, he joined Viking on trial, and less than two weeks later, put pen to paper on a deal.<\/p>\n

\"Photo<\/a>

Photo credit: Roy Storvik<\/p><\/div>\n

Soares played in 108 games for the Revolution during his four-year MLS career. He won the team’s Defender of the Year award in 2014.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A.J. Soares finally found a home on Monday after he signed with Norway side Viking FK.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":31725,"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":[175],"tags":[77,891,49,892,996,995],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nesoccertoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/AJ-12.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\/31905"}],"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=31905"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31905\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31915,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31905\/revisions\/31915"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/31725"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=31905"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=31905"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=31905"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}