February 17th, 2009
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| Article by:
By Jack Bell
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Juan Pablo Ángel, perhaps the most dangerous striker in Major League Soccer today, could end his career in the league after signing a contract extension with the Red Bulls, the club said on Monday.
“I don’t see retirement any time soon, I did the contract for peace of mind,” Ángel said during a telephone conference call. “I have a strong desire to wake up every morning and work with the team. What happened last year was vital and phenomenal for the team. I want to be here and I want to be here when Red Bull Arena opens.”
Ángel’s contract was to expire after the 2009 M.L.S. season, which the Red Bulls will open with a game against the expansion Sounders in Seattle on March 19. Erik Stover, the Red Bulls’ managing director, said the club has locked up Ángel through 2010, with subsequent club options, which usually are for two years. That would mean Ángel could be with the team until the end of the 2012 season, when he would be 36 years old. The team’s new stadium in Harrison, N.J., will open for the 2010 season.
“Obviously on the football side, he has scored 33 goals in 47 games and that speaks for itself,” Coach Juan Carlos Osorio, like Ángel a native of Colombia, said during the conference call. “I think that Juan has shown everybody that he is a great finisher. But he also has shown a commitment in every game and every practice that is second to none and a good example for our young players. Every day he brings a willingness to become better, which is contagious. I am very pleased.”
Ángel is clearly the best striker in club history and perhaps the most dangerous goal-scorer now in the league. As a designated player, Ángel earned about $1.59 million and was among the four highest-paid players in the league in 2008. His representatives made the case that as the only D.P. to have played in an M.L.S. Cup game (Guillermo Barros Schelotto of Columbus is now making D.P. money, but was not a designated player when he led the Crew to the title against the Red Bulls last November), Ángel deserved to be paid accordingly.
According to salary figures from the league’s players’ union, David Beckham was No. 1 ($6.5 million), followed by Cuauthemoc Blanco ($2.6 million) and Marcelo Gallardo ($1.8 million). Beckham is on the verge of leaving the league and Gallardo already has.
“Those figures are not always accurate,” Jeff Agoos, the club’s sporting director said of the union figures. “But Juan has shown over the course of two years that he is one of the franchise’s most important signings. He’s certainly among the highest-paid players in the league and I think this new contract speaks to that.”
The Red Bulls signed Ángel on April 17, 2007, from Aston Villa of the English Premier League. With Villa, he scored 44 goals in 175 appearances over six seasons in Birmingham. He missed seven Red Bulls games in 2008 because of injury, but still scored 14 goals in 23 regular-season games. He also scored two goals in the Red Bulls’ 4-1 aggregate win over two-time defending champion, the Houston Dynamo, in the first round of the M.L.S. playoffs.
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