Diego Colotto, Argentinian La Liga veteran signed by Pune City
THINGS ARE FALLING into place for Pune City as they push ahead with their pre-season for the 2nd edition of the Indian Super League.
On the one hand, the majority of their players is hard at work at the pre-season camp underway now in Turkey, while the team management is rounding up their transfer business by picking up their last few overseas signings. The situation can be summed up by this message from Head Coach David Platt:
Know how @FCPuneCity players are bonding with each other(22nd August, 2015) pic.twitter.com/xcB4znEslZ
— FC Pune City (@FCPuneCity) August 22, 2015
With the ISL kicking off in just about 9 weeks, getting done with transfer activities is a priority. Accordingly, Pune City's 9th foreign signing was announced earlier today, bringing in some Latin American flavour into their mostly European line-up of international recruits.
A warm welcome to Diego Colotto to the FC Pune City family! pic.twitter.com/zGJaqhgGvs
— FC Pune City (@FCPuneCity) August 24, 2015
Diego Daniel Colotto, who has played for the Argentina Under-20 team, started his club career at Argentine Pimera División outfit Club Estudiantes de La Plata, for whom he made 116 appearances, scoring 4 times between 2001 and 2004. From there he was brought to Mexico by Liga MX club Estudiantes Tecos. Within months a 23-year-old Diego became an indispensable part of their defence. For the next two seasons he was a regular starter, collecting 82 caps and 9 goals for Tecos before making a move to Club Atlas. It was from here that his career took a major turn; Deportivo La Coruña signed him in summer of 2008 in what would be the start of a 7-year stint in Spanish football, mostly at La Liga.
By his second season at Deportivo, Diego was again a regular face in the starting line up. However, Deportivo as a team were struggling, and after a tough campaign during the 2010-11 season got relegated to the Segunda Division. Diego played out another season with Deportivo, but in summer 2012 made a move back to La Liga by signing for RCD Espanyol. His 3 year stint at this club saw him play fairly regularly; in fact he made 23 appearances in La Liga 2014-15. And at this point, aged 34 and still pretty regularly playing first team top division football, FC Pune City managed to land him for ISL 2015.
The Pune City defence does not lack in quality. They already have the likes of Gourmangi Singh, Pritam Kotal plus British duo Nick Shorey and Roger Johnson. But both Gourmangi Singh and Pritam Kotal are likely to be away on national duty for some time, and you never never foresee what kind of injury problems you might have when most of your players are new faces. The 6-foot Argentinian may just prove to be the anchor that holds their defence together when the going gets hard.
