FOXBOROUGH, Mass. – No more teasing, New England Revolution fans. We have a name.
Two days after club president Brian Bilello revealed on Twitter that the Revolution had “completed another international signing,” New England officially announced the acquisition of young center back Sambinha.
The 23-year-old defender – whose given name is Mamadu Samba Candé – arrives on loan for the 2016 season from partner club Sporting Clube de Portugal. The Revs also hold an option to make the move a full transfer following the upcoming campaign.
Sambinha was targeted by the Revolution’s technical staff after General Manager Michael Burns and head coach Jay Heaps were impressed by his performance while captaining Sporting Lisbon’s B side in a Segunda Liga match in early December.
“The game we saw, both Jay and I liked him,” said Burns, whose trip to Portugal coincided with a training stint at Sporting for Revolution trio Zachary Herivaux, Sean Okoli and Donnie Smith. “He plays a position that we’re looking to strengthen and he’s a big, strong center back.”
New England’s center back pairing of Andrew Farrell and Jose Goncalves partnered together 27 times in 2015, but options were limited beyond that duo. Darrius Barnes is back in the fold after missing most of last season through injury, while London Woodberry can also deputize in the middle.
Sambinha strengthens the Revolution’s options through the club’s spine.
“We’re trying to strengthen the team as much as possible, and we feel like an area we needed to address was our backline,” said Burns. “You always have to take into consideration a suspension or an injury, and frankly last year we were probably a little thin in the back.
“This year we felt like we needed to add some more numbers there and we feel like we’ve addressed that in part with the Sambinha signing.”
With the Portuguese center back on board, New England now have the benefit of flexibility on the backline. Should Sambinha break into the starting lineup, the Revs could entertain the idea of pushing Farrell to right back, where he spent the majority of his first two years as a professional.
That, however, is a decision for Heaps and his coaching staff to make deeper into preseason.
“[Sambinha’s] definitely a player that we think makes us a better team and strengthens our backline, however Jay configures to play people in certain positions or how that shakes out,” said Burns. “We don’t know yet and I don’t think Jay knows yet.”
The first step in that process will be getting Sambinha into preseason camp, which opens on Friday evening and kicks into full gear on Saturday morning with a training session at Gillette Stadium.
While all the contract documents are signed, sealed and delivered, Sambinha won’t arrive in the United States until he receives his P-1 visa. The process to obtain that visa is underway, but as evidenced by past cases, it’s impossible to predict exactly when that process will be complete.
“Everything is set and in place, but now it takes a little bit of time,” said Burns. “It’s an unknown with every international player.
“The good thing is he’s been playing regularly, so none of us are concerned about his fitness level. But there is obviously an adjustment of moving to a new country and a new team, so for those reasons we’ll want to try to get him in as quickly as possible and get him acclimated.”
In the meantime, Burns and the Revolution will continue to expand upon their partnership with Sporting, which has come to the fore exponentially in the past two months.
“We’re excited to continue the partnership with Sporting. They’ve been great to work with,” said Burns. “We’re looking forward to getting the player here, seeing how he does, seeing how he gets acclimated to us on the field and off the field, and we’ll proceed once he gets here.”
Sambinha is the Revolution’s first concrete addition to the 2016 roster, joining unsigned SuperDraft selections Jordan McCrary, Michael Gamble and Femi Hollinger-Janzen, who’ll be fighting to earn their first professional contracts when camp opens this weekend.
Bilello also teased via Twitter on Tuesday that the Revolution have signed a Designated Player to a pre-contract, with details forthcoming “in the next few weeks.”
