Dani Sanchez

[Yngwie]

I think most of us would have expected Dani to move back to Spain's lower leagues, but he has gone on trial with Wellington Phoenix, who play in Australia's A League. Wellington's manager Ricki Herbert is also the NZ national team manager, and played against Scotland in Spain '82.

Seems Dani played in a pre-season friendly just a couple of hours after his plane landed.

NZ Herald

Very best of luck to him, he seems like a good guy and whenever he got a game for ICT he didn't do much wrong.

[AJS]

Good luck Dani boy.

[+MrCaleyjag]

I never like to hear of ex players not being picked up by anyone so good to hear he has a shot of it elsewhere, was unlucky with injuries but showed potential, hopefully he can make the trial permanent and it works out for him.

[Renegade]

It wouldn't surprise me if Steve Paterson has come into play here. According to his book, he and Ricki Herbert were/are big friends from the time they played together at Sydney Olympic. I also must mention, that I went to a Wellington Phoenix game a few years ago. Not a bad team actually and they had that Shane Smeltz up front. He looked the business (scored against Italy in the last World Cup actually) but I think he's gone now (Gold Coast perhaps?).

I'll also add that from what I saw, I'd put Wellington as about upper Scottish First Division level. The A League is a bit more of a technical league as well, mainly due to the fact that the Australians hate the long ball game, so the style and standard of football over there may well be more beneficial to Dani Sanchez than it was in this country.

Edited July 7, 2011 by Renegade

[Tichy_Blacks_Back]

Good luck to him - was unlucky that it didn't work out at TCS....

[CaleyD]

Got the feeling that had Sanchez just had a better run of things and not been dogged down by injury then he would have still been a part of the squad here (especially as we seem to be setting up to play more of a passing game). Hope it works out for him in NZ.

[starchief]

I'll go along with the general consensus. Offered something different. Might have been worth another year to see if he could do it once the injuries had cleared.

[CELTIC1CALEY3]

Sanchez added variety to our play plus skill. Wellington is a great city so here's to him being a great success. With high winds he will be the guy to keep the ball on the deck. Noticed also that Eric has moved to Turkey. Which reminds me where did our big French defender go?

[lukemackay]

Our big French defender is on the illustrious free agent list

[ict123]

Good luck to him, he was unfortunate last season as i think he was really just starting to show real promise before his injury.

I particularly liked this line from that New Zealand newspaper article, "and has just been released by Scottish Premier League club Inverness Thistle".