Football
ISL: Mumbai City FC sign Sporting Gijon midfielder Hernan Santana
Mumbai City FC have managed yet another transfer coup in the form of former Las Palmas and Sporting Gijon midfielder Hernan Santana ahead of the new Indian Super League (ISL) season. As reported by The Bridge earlier, the Islanders had been in talks with the player’s representatives for quite some time with him eager to be part of Lobera’s project at Mumbai, having been deemed surplus to requirement at Gijon.
We are pleased to announce the arrival of 30-year old Hernán Santana on a season-long loan from Sporting Gijón! 🙋♂️
Here’s the full scoop ⬇️#HolaHernán 🔵https://t.co/7wQOtfPgQd
— Mumbai City FC (@MumbaiCityFC) October 25, 2020
The 30-year-old has previously worked with Lobera at Las Palmas, where he came through the academy ranks to reach the first team in 2012. A creative midfielder who can also function as an effective deep lying playmaker, Santana completes Mumbai’s foreign quota of players with the others being Mourtada Fall, Ahmed Jahouh, Hugo Boumous, Adam Le Fondre, Bartholomew Ogbeche and Cy Goddard. An integral part of the Las Palmas side during his eight-year stay with the club, he helped them gain promotion to the La Liga in 2014-15. In 2018, he joined Sporting Gijon, and although his contract with the club was till 2021, he fell down the pecking order last season with the club’s sporting director Javi Rico informing him that he wasn’t in the team’s plans for next season.
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Since then, there have been continuous rumours linking him with Mumbai City who coincidentally both happen to be under the umbrella of City Football Group. With his arrival, we’ll have to wait and watch if last season’s player of the season Boumous is shifted to the wings as Lobera tries to fit in all his star players in the starting eleven. With so many talented and creative players at his disposal, that will undoubtedly be a happy problem for Lobera who would want to impose his fluid, passing style on to his new team’s gameplay as soon as possible.
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