Back in January, Selangor signed Juliano Mineiro from Brazil to fill the vacancy left by their injured winger, Andik Vermansyah.
Andik Vermansyah picked up an injury during last year’s AFF Suzuki Cup tournament and needed quite some time to recover.
Consequently, Selangor signed 31-year-old Mineiro on a six-month contract, and it was understood that he was to leave after that if Andik Vermansyah fully recovers and is fit to get back into the team by then.
Six months flew by, and Andik Vermansyah has fully recovered and certified fit to make a comeback and regain his position in the club — all of which spells bad news for Mineiro.
However, it seemed as though Mineiro’s future in Selangor was safe for a bit when the management announced that they will not be extending Victor Astafei’s contract. Astafei, another import player, was also signed at the same time as Mineiro to bolster their midfield in Andik’s absence.
But Mineiro’s dreams shattered as he showed up for training last Monday and found at least ten other foreign players on trial with Selangor.
Despite the trials of almost ten new foreign players, Selangor’s head coach P. Maniam has injected some level of hope by explaining that Mineiro can still remain in the team if the players on trial do not perform up to his level.
“We have a number of options regarding Mineiro. If we can find a good player to replace him, we will replace him.”
“But the player must be better than Mineiro.” P. Maniam told Goal.com.
Apart from that, most of the new foreign players were also trying out for the position of striker, so Mineiro need not worry too much.
“So far, he’s doing very well with Selangor and has scored five goals.We want to see if we can find anyone better than him.”
“If we can, we’ll consider him [the new player], if not we will retain Mineiro.” P.Maniam added.
Selangor is set to discuss the possibility of Mineiro’s contract extension in the next few weeks.
Other posts by Gowri Krishnan
