The 21 year old Alexandru Matan became the first Romanian player in Columbus Crew history yesterday.
The Columbus Crew acquired Matan for $1.8 million from Viitorul FC. Viitorul means "future" in Romanian. That's no mistake, the club's goal is to promote as many players as possible from their academy. The club was founded in 2009 and is owned by Romanian soccer legend, Georghe Hagi. Hagi has played for Real Madrid, Barcelona and is as a result known as "The Maradona of The Carpathians."
Matan, as one of "Hagi's kids" graduated from the academy making his first team debut on May 6th, 2016. Overall, Matan made 66 appearances for Viitorui. In addition, Alex made 26 appearances on loan in the middle of that spell for opposing Romanian Liga 1 side Voluntari.
Therefore, at 21 years of age Matan already has 92 appearances in a solid European league. In Viitorui's currently ongoing 20/21 season Matan had 22 appearances, 20 starts, a goal, and six assists.
Some of Matan's best club goals:
At the international level Matan has actually been more prolific in front of goal. He's scored 10 goals in 17 appearances for the Romanian U-17, U-18, U-19, and U-21's combined. In comparison he has 5 in club play. But perhaps could be how Viitorui plays?
The U-19's were a real wild time with Matan scoring 8 goals in 6 games. I would perhaps hire that coach as an assistant. 😅
Some of his international goals:
U-19 numbers were boosted by four goals against minnows Gibraltar here. As Matan had goals 1,2,3, and 6 in this game:
But Alex also scored against Russia & Sweden and Serbia twice at the U-19 level.
Despite paying Viitorui $1.8 million for Alex Matan which was actually the 3rd highest Columbus Crew transfer fee...
Therefore, if Columbus actually needs more players they could possibly go after two more Matan's if they so desire.
From Viitorul
— Transfermarkt.co.uk (@TMuk_news) March 8, 2021
Alexandru Matan joins Columbus Crew - 3rd most expensive transfer in club history#Crew96 https://t.co/yDw1TEeORE
The highest being for Lucas Zelarayan last year for $7 million. These Haslam's are okay. 😅
And likely paying Matan somewhere in the $400,000-$600,000 K per year range on a multi-year contract... Matan will still only count as $200,000 on the Columbus Crew salary cap.
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| From Jacob Myers story yesterday on Matan's acquisition (LINK) |
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