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As tipped by Marc Weber at The Province, Vancouver Whitecaps have signed Yordy Reyna to a deal the club has stated is for 2018 with options for the following two seasons.
The 23-year-old Peruvian forward is expected to join the 'Caps this week at their preseason training camp in Wales.
A closer look at @yordy_10 ⬇️#VWFC #OurAllOurHonour pic.twitter.com/wHI3q6Fyp3
— Vancouver Whitecaps (@WhitecapsFC) January 23, 2017
This of relevance to New York Red Bulls' fans for two reasons: Vancouver is RBNY's first opponent of the 2017 season; Reyna has joined the 'Caps from RB Salzburg. If the Red Bulls of New York are knocked out of the 2016-17 CONCACAF Champions League by one of the former Red Bulls of Salzburg - well, soccer can be a cruel game.
Reyna had been attached to Salzburg since 2013. He played most of his first season's soccer in Austria with Salzburg feeder-team FC Liefering. In the 2014-15 season, he split his time between SV Grodig - an Austrian Bundesliga club at the time - and RB Leipzig, which was still in Germany's second tier at that moment in its history. He had a better time at Grodig than Leipzig, scoring 11 goals in 19 league appearances in Austria but just one in 13 in Germany.
Returning to Salzburg for the 2015-16 season, Reyna has found it increasingly difficult to get playing time over the past couple of seasons. He got 16 league appearances in 2015-16; he'd been given two Bundesliga appearances for Salzburg since the start of the 2016-17 campaign. A recent Salzburger Nachrichten assessment of Salzburg's attacking players listed Reyna seventh on a list of eight and suggested his exit from the club was "imminent".
The Austrian report wasn't wrong. Reyna lands in Vancouver with a point to prove: he hasn't quite progressed as might have been hoped of a player who was scoring freely in the Austrian top flight just two seasons ago. As it happens, the very first team in MLS he will get the chance to prove his point to will be another Red Bull club.
Vancouver and RBNY meet on February 22 in the first leg of a 2016-17 CONCACAF Champions League quarterfinal.