Costa Rican International Christian Bolaños Rumoured to Have Signed with the MLS Vancouver Whitecaps

Reports emerged late yesterday from Costa Rica around dinnertime (see above) suggesting that the Vancouver Whitecaps were in the process of signing 31 year old Costa Rican International Christian Bolaños on a free transfer from Deportivo Saprissa of the Costa Rican Primera Division joining current Ticos Kendall Waston and Jordan Smith (with whom he shares the same agency as well as with Deybi Flores) on the Whitecaps roster.  This rumour was confirmed almost immediately by Marc Weber of the Province and Kristian Jack with the latter saying on Twitter that Whitecaps Coach Carl Robinson has been a long time admirer of the talented Bolaños suggesting that Whitecaps coaching staff including Robinson had scouted when Costa Rica when they played the Republic of Ireland (including long-time Robbo friend Robbie Keane) in a Friendly in Philadelphia on June 6, 2014 as a warm up prior to the 2014 World Cup.  Details concerning right winger Bolaños’s past playing career, which included stints at Saprissa, Copenhagen, and Qatari side Al Gharafa and his time with the Costa Rican National Team and his resulting experience in the past two World Cups are covered admirably (as usual) by Marc Weber and Eightysixforever.com and will not be repeated here.

Of interest to me about this signing (besides there being yet another Christian/Cristian [a Trinity now?] on the Whitecaps roster ) is that yet again, the Whitecaps were not able to control the leaking of the signing by the original player’s club.  It appears that the days of a joint announcement by both clubs appears to have gone the way of the dodo in the age of Twitter, Reddit, etc.  The actual formal announcement from the Whitecaps regarding the signing is anticipated to take place sometime next week.

Also interesting to me about this signing is that by adding yet another international to the Whitecaps roster this suggests that even more roster moves are afoot for the Whitecaps as almost all of their current international spots are taken up by players on their current roster suggesting that either additional international players will be on the move and/or perhaps that they already have a trade arranged (i.e., Mattocks and/or Koffie and/or Dean perhaps) with an international roster spot coming back the Whitecaps’ way (for some strange reason that I will never understand International spots are apparently a tradable commodity in the MLS).  Arguably there still needs to be some room on the roster for the experienced right back and the additional experienced (DP?) striker rumoured still to be on the Whitecaps shopping list and without making additional moves and not having any international spots available, this could restrict the Whitecaps to focusing only on domestics/homegrown players to fill those vacancies.

As noted by Marc Weber of the Province, the younger Bolanos appears to be a like for like swap for Argentinian Mauro Rosales on the current Whitecaps roster suggesting that he likely won’t be coming back in a playing capacity with the Whitecaps next season.  I was actually hoping that Cascadian favourite (well in some circles at least) Rosales (and striker Robert Earnshaw for that matter) would be able to stay at the club long term in some sort of a coach/mentor capacity but that just may not be in the cards.

When reached for comment by phone in San José, the capital of Costa Rica, Bolanos’s headband had no comment regarding the rumoured impending move and referred any additional questions to his agent.

BTW, after Bolanos is confirmed, if the Whitecaps FC promotional staff don’t put in orders for Whitecaps branded headbands as a merchandising tie in and/or have a headband promotional night, they really should be shown the door because that really is too easy.

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Update: On January 20, 2016 Bolanos was officially announced by the Whitecaps as a “transfer from Costa Rica’s Primera División side Deportivo Saprissa using Targeted Allocation Money – pending receipt of his international transfer certificate, Canadian work permit and visa. Per Major League Soccer and club policy, terms of the deal were not disclosed.”