OK this is getting quite exciting. When I first read about us signing Vicente I thought 1. It's bullshit and 2. Hasn't he been injured for the best part of five years. However, 1. It seems it isn't and 2. According to Valencia fans he hasn't actually been injured much in the last 2 seasons (he played 45 games in 08/09) but fell out with the manager and has been restricted to mainly substitute appearances (and subsequently released).
This is a player who was voted the best in the Spanish league seven years ago and who was rated as possibly the best left winger in the world at the time. He was compared favourably to David Silva and kept Mata out of the team.
He's still only 30 and the Valencia guy who's been helpfully posting on the Brighton forum says he is still 70% of the player he was at his best. 70% of the best player in the Spanish league (& who Real Madrid once bid 36m Euros for) will be ok for us......
Hilariously a Brighton fan on Northstandchat reported that he'd seen Gus, Tanno and some other blokes going into an Italian restaurant in Hove and had spoken with Tanno about signing Vicente. So another fan went to the restaurant, pretended to be reading out the choice of pizzas to a friend on his phone while taking a photo of the Brighton boss and his assistant with Vicente and his agent:
http://twitpic.com/6dzmoqGenius.
If we pull this off it could be the signing of the year and potentially Brighton's biggest signing ever. Although we have plenty of wingers already Vicente (if fit) is on another level, he can also play as a second striker.......
Here he is scoring a neat finish against Bilbao last year.
And some of his other stuff:
Fingers crossed....
