Letters From Camp: "Trial, trial again" - International trialists join Reds in Turkey

Javier Martina - Pride of Netherlands Antilles

Team Winter's goal of releasing more reliable information in four days than Mo Johnston did in four years continued today with the promised list of the remaining participating trialists. After the introduction of the three Canadians (Eddy Sidra, Gianluca Zavarise and David Monsalve) yesterday, TFC's "Camp GobbleGobble" in Turkey welcomed the following potential Reds into the happy family. Well, except for Uncle Dwayne... he's a bit miserable. Anyhoo, here's the latest contestants in TurkeyTime...
　
· JAVIER MARTINA: 23-year-old forward from the Netherlands Antilles. That's an island chain, not the Star Wars pilot. Joined the Jong AFC Ajax (Ajax's youth team) from the amazingly named FC Omniworld who are possibly a club from a Dutch theme park. Spent 3 season with Jong Ajax with mixed results culminating in a brief loan to HFC Haarlem before they went bankrupt... not his fault hopefully. Was highly rated for a period which did see him make two minor appearances for the main Ajax team. Big chances on a TFC club with few forward options.
· KING GYAN OSEI: Or possibly King Osei Gyan... or Gyan Osei King... depends where you read it! Either way, the Accra, Ghana born holding midfielder who attended high school in California was once such a prospect that Fulham snatched him up straight out of a Ghanaian academy. While never making it onto the Fulham First Team, the tough midfielder proved to be a useful member during a three-season loan spell at Belgian Pro League club Germinal Beerschot. And hey, who here doesn't want a Beerschot?!
· BAS ENT: Frequent visitors to The Yorkies and other TFC sources will have seen Bas Ent's name for a while now. The technical Dutch winger trained with Toronto last summer including getting some minutes in the friendly vs. Bolton Wanderers. Ent spent his young career toiling through the Dutch Eerste Divisie and lower with clubs such as FC Volendam and VV Katwijk before finding himself at the Dutch-phile Ohio-based club Dayton Dutch Lions in the USL PDL. Dayton isn't far from Columbus and Ent just wants to get away. Isn't it our duty to help an Ohio refugee? Please be generous.
· SANTIAGO GONZALEZ ARECO: While not yet a renowned name in International football circles this lithe 18-year-old Uruguayan striker has made a few waves in his home country. The 5 foot 8 hitman showed enough promise to play for Uruguay's highly regarded U-17 team and he also earned a spot on their U-17 World Cup squad in 2009. Hasn't managed to break free of his last club's (River Plate Montevideo) B-team where despite having an eye for goal has succumbed to criticisms of his fragile physical nature in the box.
· NICK SOOLSMA: The least known of the three Dutch treats in this group, the 23-year-old Soolsma has yet to cement a place up front with a club of any substance. Spent time with Holland's VV Young Boys and HFC Haarlem (the Dutch kind of Harlem, not the cool Hip Hop one). No word if Soolsma had anything to do with Haarlem's bankruptcy either. Despite flirtations with the Dutch U-20 and U-17 set-ups, definitely the dark horse of this group.

Pride of The Rebellion - Wedge Antilles