Guys, Renny Vega Really, Really Wants to Play for the Red Bulls

But that can get complicated when management won't even acknowledge your existence.

Reports have been surfacing, rather steadily, from South America that the Venezuelan international has been in talks with the Red Bulls, with the first report surfacing Jan. 6 in El Nacional that there is, according to Google Translate, "latent interest" in the keeper and that Vega even vacationed in New York. Playing in New York, he said, was "that last experience (I wish I had) before retiring."

With Frank Rost out and Bouna Coundoul and Alex Horwath released, adding the man who backstopped Venezuela to a fourth place Copa America finish seemed like a great option.

Then another report surfaced Jan. 18 - six days after the Bulls drafted Ryan Meara - that the Red Bulls were still in talks with Vega, despite GM Erik Soler denying the club's interest. He told reporters covering Caracas FC "Things are going forward very nicely ... Aside from the Red Bulls, another team came out (with interest)."

Jan. 21 Soler came straight out and told reporters "I’ve never heard of him, so that must be just a rumor." Two days later, another report surfaced, this time from the Spanish-language arm of MLSsoccer.com, that he'd "go with his eyes closed to New York" and that he'd like very much to play in the U.S.

Quite a change of tone on Vega's part, huh? And all of this while Soler and Head Coach Hans Backe continue to deny the rumors and went ahead and signed keeper Jeremy Vuolo from Finland.

There are really only two options to the Vega rumors: Either Vega was contacted, probably informally, by the Red Bulls and the team backed out for one reason or another (Age? Vega is 32. Play? Seems like he could be streaky, especially when abroad) or Vega wants to play in New York badly enough he just made up the rumors, hoping they'd make their way up to North America, with the idea that if it doesn't work out, no one would be any the wiser. The Red Bulls recent moves in goal seem to negate a third option: That the team really is actively seeking Vega and just don't want anyone to know for one reason or another.

Either way Vega seems a bit like a desperate teenager in all this, either concocting stories about how much the team wants him or twisting any attention he gets into something way more tangible than it really was. Now he looks like the dejected admirer, backing off his rather public statements about the affection team and player had for one another after team pretty publicly dismisses them.