Melbourne Victory’s newest signing Ricardinho says he can’t wait to show the club’s fans his talent and believes he can help continue Melbourne’s strong run of success in the Hyundai A-League.
Melbourne Victory’s newest signing Ricardinho says he can’t wait to show the club’s fans his talent and believes he can help continue Melbourne’s strong run of success in the Hyundai A-League.
The Brazilian was unveiled on Thursday as the club’s international marquee signing. The 26-year-old has played in both Brazil and Korea and is excited with the challenge that awaits him.
“I just want to show my talent, the way I play and what I can do for the club,” he said through his interpreter.
“I’ve been really impressed not only with the structure, but the photos of the championship wins. Hopefully I can help to continue that sequence of the success.”
While Ricardinho is busting to show what he can do, coach Ernie Merrick is prepared to show some patience with the Brazilian as he bids to find form and fitness after a couple of months out of the game.
Merrick believes it will take a couple of weeks before he expects Ricardinho to be ready for his Hyundai A-League debut.
“He’s played every season and he’s played to around April this year, so he’s been out a couple of months. We’ll assess that at the first day’s training,” he said.
“As you know we never push anyone. It took our other overseas signings some time to get used to the way we play and get his fitness up. We won’t be rushing him in, I’d say 2-3 weeks something like that.”
While Ricardinho is unlikely to make his debut until five or six weeks into the new season, Merrick said it was important that the club show patience and got the right style of player.
“We’ve signed pretty good overseas players and that we are very thorough when it comes to due diligence etc. I think this has worked out really well for us and given it is a 30-round season, we didn’t want to compromise anything just to rush someone in that we didn’t feel really comfortable with,” he said.
“This negotiations took quite a while. I was not one for rushing him. It was a case of getting it done and we’ve got it done and we can look forward to having a very exciting player here.”
“Our fans are always excited by this type of player. That’s the type and brand of football we want to play, Exciting one-on-one dribbling football. So, I think he’ll fit in well.”
