Business As Usual: Pepe Moreno To Stay With Once Caldas

Personnel-wise, it’s been a disastrous couple of days for the New England Revolution. Rajko Lekic is off in Denmark, Monsef Zerka is apparently surplus to requirements, Milton Caraglio is in Chile, Re-entry Draft pick Danleigh Borman is in South Africa, and now news out of Colombia has told us that one of the Revs' "big" offseason signings has changed his mind and will not suit up for Jay Heaps in Foxborough. And you thought the Patriots were having a bad week.

According to Tarantela Deportiva, José "Pepe" Moreno --the supposed solution for the Revolution’s goal scoring woes from last season-- is going to stay with his home club of Once Caldas. Like with most MLS signings, there was not a whole lot of information about terms of Moreno’s deal other than the fact that it was a loan. And while it is not necessarily odd within soccer leagues for players to be recalled by the club that owns their contract, the fact that Moreno was sold to Revs supporters as a solution and then never showed up to play is frustrating.

In addition, being as no terms of Moreno’s contract were publicly discussed --as per league and team policy-- some supporters are wondering if there was ever actually a deal in place. The Revolution now will continue on in their pre-season with no true forward signed to the team outside of Zack Schilawski, and with most transfer windows closed it will be difficult for them to bring in any kind of proven goal scoring threat before MLS's April deadline.

However, being as there has been no official statement from the Revolution or MLS, and South American newspapers are not always the most reliable, the full facts of this whole situation are probably not out yet. Still, in a very slow news period for New England, this is not the sort of information that a club would want coming to light.

To me, this brings into question (a) the league and team policy of not releasing player contract information, and (b) the big hullabaloo made over getting a player on loan who may have had cold feet to begin with. While the front office restructuring has made it very clear who should get the blame on this PR and personnel disaster (team General Manager Mike Burns), it has unfortunately not done anything to show supporters how this problem will be solved. The season kicks off in just 30 days, hopefully by then we will have some answers.

Editor's Note: New England Soccer Today tweeted earlier that Once Caldas' official stance on the matter is that they are "not ready to comment at this moment."