New Watford signing Yaser Asprilla has been warned of the dangers that could await him in Europe, as fellow Colombian Marlos Moreno can attest to.
Asprilla is one of the highest-rated youngsters in Colombian football, something which led Watford to move for his signature in January.
They paid around $3m to secure 70% of his economic rights, with the youngster set to make the move to Vicarage Road in the summer.
Asprilla is the latest in a long line of youngsters to make the move to Watford, with the Hornets having targeted South American players in particular in recent years.
Whether he will make the grade in Europe remains to be seen, with the path a hard one to succeed in, to say the least.
One man who struggled after moving at an early age was Moreno, and Las 2 Orillas look at the comparisons between him and Asprilla today in a cautionary tale.
They say there is ‘the fear’ of the Watford man becoming just like Moreno, who was the ‘last teenage star’ to move to Europe.
Like Moreno, Asprilla is the ‘great promise’ of Colombia football, and the country’s hopes of ‘having a new world star’ are now firmly pinned on him.
He’s already the second-youngest player in his country’s history after appearing in the friendly with Honduras, but his tale is not a new one. It was the same for Moreno six years ago.
He too has ‘all the makings of a world-class player’ and was bought by Manchester City, but things quickly ‘went downhill’ for him, and he has now ended up ‘on the sidelines in Belgium’.
Rather than being a star, he’s now ‘lost in the backwaters of Europe’, and there is a worry Asprilla could go the same way.
According to Las 2 Orillas, ‘it is impossible’ to look at Asprilla and not think of Marlos. Both were ‘young, immensely talented and with the ambition to take on the world’.
They’ve also both declared that they hope to be better than Tino Asprilla, something Moreno has failed to do.
Of course, the new Watford man ‘still has time’ to take things slowly, be well advised and hopefully follow in the footsteps of Luis Diaz, who bid his time, established himself in Portugal and is now starring for Liverpool.
He was smart, and the hope is that Asprilla will follow in his footsteps rather than Moreno’s, who provides a cautionary tale, to say the least.
