Contracted Players - Return of the Long Pins

Steven - Zone will love him

Steven - Zone will love him

Visual from the presser

https://we.tl/rWvG0753S1

I like this signing, on paper he looks pretty high-level for the A-League. 

I think it's worth an import slot considering it's a position we've struggled with since Moss left. 

I like this signing, on paper he looks pretty high-level for the A-League. 

I think it's worth an import slot considering it's a position we've struggled with since Moss left. 

Is no-one else concerned he's barely played in the past 3 years? 11 apps since 2015.

According to Wiki.

Is no-one else concerned he's barely played in the past 3 years? 11 apps since 2015.

According to Wiki.

I am more concerned at the simple uncomplicated pronounciation of his last name {= "Coortoh")

How good can he really be if there are no ę,  ź, ń or even a single ą in his name?

I am more concerned at the simple uncomplicated pronounciation of his last name {= "Coortoh")

How good can he really be if there are no ę,  ź, ń or even a single ą in his name?

And in a major European League that is way higher than the A league quality wise

I strongly disagree with this signing, to be honest - smacks of Tony Warner.

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Sitting on the bench is the same wherever you are.

I strongly disagree with this signing, to be honest - smacks of Tony Warner.

Why didn't we just sign Bozza? 

I think a lot of people speak excellent English in the Netherlands and he's been there long enough to have learned enough to get by - so I like to think he'll be OK in that department.

Filip Kurto is another Polish player in the Australian league, although he will play in a team from New Zealand

After a six-year stay in the Netherlands, Filip Kurto decided to completely change the surroundings. Despite rumors of returning to Poland, he eventually contracted with New Zealand's Wellington Phoenix - licensed to play in the Australian A-League. Kurto will be the first Polish player representing the club from the island in the south-eastern Pacific. Michał Kopczyński is about to join him soon.

In the previous season, the phenomenal play of Adrian Mierzejewski and the reliability of Marcin Budziński could be observed on the A-League pitches. In the summer, the first of them moved to China, and the second decided to return to well-known Cracovia. However, the emptiness of Polish footballers was quite quickly fulfilled. In the new season, the former goalkeeper will appear in Wellington Phoenix, among others House of JC Kerkrade - Filip Kurto.

Although it is a club from New Zealand, thanks to the license obtained in 2007, it can appear in the Australian league. Wellington Phoenix in A-League is usually a team from the bottom of the table. Just four times in 11 years, they managed to advance to the final round, in which there are six best teams after the main season. The biggest success of Wellington so far is to reach the final of the summer Pre-Season Challenge Cup, in which they finally succumbed to a penalty-kick (7: 8) of Melbourne Victory FC. Then they scored their best league season so far and reached the semifinal of the final round, succumbing to the 2: 4 future Australian champion - Sydney FC.

In the last season, Wellington took the penultimate place in the league, losing the most goals.

Unfavorable results caused rotations in the goal, thanks to which all three goalkeepers present in the club collected their performances. This situation has caused the new player to look at this position and Kurto will get his chance to show.

Filip went to the Netherlands in 2012, when for lack of prospects for the future he did not prolong the expiring contract with Wisła Kraków. Shortly after this incident, he decided to sign a contract with Roda JC Kerkrade appearing in Eredivisie. The very fact of playing in the highest class in the Netherlands was well received in the Polish media. The reality turned out, however, that Roda with Kurto in the goal had to fight for maintenance and capitulated in the second season. During the two seasons, the Polish goalkeeper played regularly and threw up the ball 132 times. As you well know, in the Netherlands less attention is focused on defensive lines - but despite all this result Kurto was alarming.

Despite the decrease, the competitor remained in Eredivisie and defended the colors of FC Dordrecht in the season 14/15. The year spent in this club was full of paradoxes. For the second time in a row, Kurto scored a drop, he also recorded his worst season in his career in terms of lost goals (72), and so in the spring round there were moments when he took a lot of praise and won the player's prize of the month.

The brand created, despite weak numbers, has allowed it to remain in the same league again. After switching to Excelsior Rotterdam and winning the first team, in the seventh round Kurto unfortunately hit the post and was taken to the hospital unconscious.

In the end, it went without a serious injury and when he came fully to himself, after the new year he returned to the regular game. Unfortunately, he was soon hit by another bad luck. After several minutes of the match against ADO Den Haag Kurto suffered an ankle injury, which fortunately did not turn out to be broken - however, it excluded him from playing again for a long period of time.

Filip from then on had no chance to play in Excelsior and his career stopped there. For two years he managed to count only 11 league games. He spent the past season again in a well-known House, and unfortunately he never managed to get up from the bench, which caused a great desire to completely change the surroundings and try strength in another country.

The final output of Kurto in Eredivis is 112 performances and as many as 221 goals conceded. The number of 20 clean accounts shows, however, that the Polish goalkeeper also had good moments, showing that he was once considered a big talent performing in youth representations. We are interested in his performances in the Australian league, because contrary to popular opinion, the level there is high. Maybe even comparable to that in the Netherlands. According to journalist Małgorzata Chłopaś, Michał Kopczyński is to join him on Thursday, so we will have two representatives in A-League again.

In what way? Warner was a has-been in the twilight of his career. This guy is young and is on the way up.

A lot of people are saying "there must be other Oz/Kiwi goalkeepers of equal quality available", but considering that Tandoori Flappy was suddenly better than anything else we had last year, I doubt it.

This is fair - the comparison to Tony Warner was an exaggeration, no doubt. It makes more sense to me now I've heard we got knocked back from Gleeson and Marinovic.

When did we get knocked back by Gleeson and Marinovich? I must have missed that!

Kurto was born in what, 1990, 1991?  This means all his primary and high school in Poland was done after the fall of the old regime (1990) which means English and German (or English and French) as compulsory two foreign languages from primary school on.  I expect him to communicate in reasonable English well.

And it is not even a new thing: right up till the fall of the Soviet block it was still required to take two foreign languages at high school but one of them had to be Russian (and the other either English, German or French).   However, the main problem with fluency in those languages until 1990 was that young people simply had no opportunity to live and work abroad which would promote fluency in the languages they learned.  In fact this did not improve until a bit later, probably late nineties (when the permanent work permits were first offered by Germany and then The Netherlands and other EU countries). It changed completely after Poland joined the EU in 2003 and Poles who spoke foreign languages poorly simply struggled getting good jobs.

Apparently he "threw up the ball 132 times". That is very impressive.

"Michał Kopczyński to join him there on Thursday" - so seems the Polish Paracki is incoming.