Hobro IK terminates Anatole Abang's loan, player set to return to New York Red Bulls

In a press release, Hobro IK has announced Anatole Abang's loan to the club has been terminated, returning the player to the New York Red Bulls "with immediate effect".

In the club's official statement, it is explained that the decision was in part precipitated by additions to Hobro's playing staff, and part by Abang's desire to win back his place in Cameroon's national team. Ten appearances and three goals for the top-placed team in Denmark's second tier wasn't enough to get Abang to the 2017 Africa Cup of Nations with his national team. Hobro's announcement quotes the club's sporting director, Jens Hammer Sorensen:

Overall, it is best for both parties that he will be able to chase fast playing in another club where he has a better position to fight back in the national team. He is a young player who still has much to learn, but for me there is no doubt that it is a player with great potential, which we will come to hear more about in the future.

So Abang is on the hunt for a new team. Not necessarily, of course, his present team. It feels like he didn't leave RBNY on the best terms - he could hardly get playing time for the reserve team by the time he moved to Hobro - and it isn't clear whether the rumored (for now) displacement of Ali Curtis from the front office potentially makes Abang more or less welcome at the MLS club.

Once A Metro was quite convinced Abang would never play for RBNY again. OaM would probably still take that bet if offered, though not with quite the same confidence as before. It should be noted that RBNY sporting director Ali Curtis refused to characterize Abang's loan as anything more than a bridge for the player to find better form.

It's unlikely Curtis would have predicted the current situation. In February 2017, it is now an open question as to whether Anatole Abang will show up at RBNY training before (absent for three weeks) sporting director Curtis. They both might not return at all, of course. But it is certainly unexpected that Abang might be a Red Bull when MLS 2017 kicks off and Ali Curtis increasingly probably will not.