The First Romashov
Under-fire Grilled International head coach
Sazwan bin Hj Muhd Salleh shored up his squad today, with the S$2.2 million purchase of 31 year-old Russian forward
Mikhail Romashov from Italian Division Five club _BERGAMO_ - who had also just offloaded Indonesian fullback Elfonda Nelson to Paraguayan III.12 leaders Rey Salomon. This concluded a two-month stay in Italy for Romashov, who never got _BERGAMO_ boss Carletto Bongiovanni to warm to him despite scoring in three of his last five starts there.
Romashov's talent would be readily appreciated by others, and young Belarus head coach Maksim Kantarovich of Romanian II.2 competitors FC NIMENI did not hide his interest in bringing the striker over to Bucharest. Indeed, there was another approach from the Romanian capital as V.43 side FC FUNAI put in a bid too, but that was quickly trumped by NIMENI.
Sazwan would waste no time in presenting the new International Number Ten, who will fill the void left by
Chua Jun Long's evident decline, and also share set-piece duties with current first-choice taker
Khosrov Danelyan often not making the lineup. "Mikhail understands that we have a rebuilding project going on, and while we may or may not be staying up, he is in for the ride."
Before _BERGAMO_, Romashov had just come off a three-season stay in Greece with Division Four regulars GAVRONICK, with about four years each in America with Pennsylvania's The Spirit (formerly Iron Pigs) and Mexico with Shuncos directly before that. His first transfer was to England with another Hattrick International club, the now-defunct Fobos FC, having left Moscow's Gergedan at the age of nineteen.
The well-travelled journeyman fully intends to see out his new four-year contract with Grilled International at least, and is already looking forward to starting against F.C.ITACA at Burung as the team's main striker. "It's my first stint in Asia... but football is the same everywhere." he offered.
