Goodbye, Giovani
Goodbye, Giovani
Well, it’s belated adios time for Giovani Alex Dos Santos Ramírez. The 18-year old has joined Tottenham for approximately 6million euros, which could rise to 11million euros depending on appearances and performance. It was fun to have Gio in our side and, frankly, I’m sad to see him go. I can’t blame him for his [...]
Well, it’s belated adios time for Giovani Alex Dos Santos Ramírez. The 18-year old has joined Tottenham for approximately 6million euros, which could rise to 11million euros depending on appearances and performance. It was fun to have Gio in our side and, frankly, I’m sad to see him go. I can’t blame him for his move, as mercenary as it is, because he was in a side that was never really going to give him a large number of starts and thus was never going to give him a large-money contract.
Hopefully he has found a good home, but I have my doubts, as do many, I believe. I hope to be proven wrong and quickly so, really, but moving from Barcelona to Tottenham is by no means a step up, even if Gio claims, “It is a dream for me to come to a big club like Spurs.” Right, because Tottenham is a bigger club than Barcelona…(11th in the Premiership is better than 3rd in La Liga? Who knew.)
Enough of the negatives, though. I love the kid’s style and flair on the field and he was quickly developing; perhaps he’ll be another escaped gem like Fabregas and we’ll rue the day we didn’t give in to his demands for Ronaldinho-like money.
His stats with the team during his solitary year were:
La Liga: 28 appearances (10 starts, 18 subs); 3 goals; 4 assists*
Champions League: 5 appearances (1 start, 4 subs) 1 goal
Copa del Rey: 5 appearances, 0 goals
Overall: 38 appearances, 4 goals, 4 assists. Not too shabby for a first-year player who is only 18. Not bad at all, really. But he wanted more, so more he’ll get from Juande Ramos’ new “Spanish Armada”…Best of luck to our little man, who grew up in the youth ranks (from 2001) and is now plying his trade far from “home.” May it go well for you, Gio. And may Soccernet spell your name correctly some day.
*all assists are listed from Soccernet, even though I generally disagree with keeping assist stats in soccer because there is no way to define assists or, at the very least, an agreed upon way of figuring them out. Yet I’ll list them here because the stats are generally indicative of performance.
