Ajax seal Luque deal: Spaniard pens three-year contract
25 August: On Thursday 23 August Ajax's general and
technical directors, Maarten Fontein and Martin van Geel,
were spotted at Schiphol Airport. They boarded a flight to
Newcastle and everybody knew what they were going for. It was
officially confirmed today: Albert Luque Martos, left-footed
forward of Newcastle United FC, is an Ajacied. The 29 year-old
Spaniard is known as injury-prone, but passed his medical
without problems and will pen a three-year contract at the
Amsterdam ArenA, until 30 June 2010.
Spicy detail: besides two relatively minor Spanish clubs
(Levante and Betis Sevilla) the three most important major
clubs that were after Luque's signature were Holland's
traditional 'Big Three', Ajax, PSV and Feyenoord. Luque
committed to Ajax, reportedly because the Amsterdam club
offered him the by far best salary: an annual 2.2 million
euros, according to press reports. The transfer fee Ajax will
pay to Newcastle United has not been revealed.
Albert Luque Martos (born Terrassa, Spain, 11 March 1978)
was born in Catalonia and fell in love with FC Barcelona as a
young boy. He started his career on trial with
Barça, but never made it to the temple that is
Camp Nou. He ended up at 'Barcelona B', the Barcelona
reserves who operate as an independent club in La Liga's lower
divisions, but was deemed not good enough and released at the
age of 19 by Barcelona's big boss... Louis van Gaal.
Real Mallorca landed Luque in 1998, but loaned him out
to Málaga CF for the 1999-2000 season. It was in
Málaga that his career started to take off: Luque scored
5 goals in 25 games for Málaga and returned to
Mallorca. When he left the mediterranean island in the summer
of 2002, he had 80 league appearances and 29 goals
for Real Mallocra behind his name. His best season with
Mallorca was 2000-2001: the club qualified for the
preliminary stages of the Champions League and Luque's
goal against Hajduk Split opened the door to the group
stage.
All of this had drawn the attention of Deportivo La
Coruña, who offered him a contract in the summer of
2002. Luque was not usually a starter in his first season, but
managed to score 12 goals nonetheless, mostly as a sub. His
'big break' in Deportivo La Coruña's first team followed
in 2003: he scored the decisive goal in the Champions League
qualifier against Rosenborg. Later in the competition he also
netted against PSV, Juventus and AC Milan. Luque was now a
Spanish international (17 caps so far, including appearances at
the 2002 World Cup and Euro 2004) and a left midfielder, left
forward or striker of international reputation. After
101 league appearances and 26 goals for Deportivo La
Coruña he left Spain in the summer of 2005: Newcastle
United had paid no less than 9.5 million English pounds for
him, the equivalent of some 14 million euros.
Luque arrived to St. James's Park as a superstar, but two
years later we have to conclude that his two-year spell in
England was unfortunate and unsuccesful: Luque picked up a
hamstring injury in his second match for 'The Magpies' and it
wasn't the only injury he would sustain in the U.K. Was
his Newcastle career undermined by injuries and a lack of
managerial credit, or did he simply fail to deliver? Fact is
that Luque only had 21 Premiership appearances for
Newcastle, in which he scored just once (on 17 April 2006, in
the regional grudge game against Sunderland). He failed to
score a league goal in the 2006-2007 season, but did net twice
in UEFA Cup games.
Luque started the pre-season campaign with Newcastle knowing
that several strikers were now ahead of him in the pecking
order. His pre-season form was not bad: he notched goals in
friendlies against Celtic (2x) and Juventus in his last month
as a Newcastle player. Now, he's an Ajax man.
Ajax contacted Newcastle United after they had vainly
attempted to sign Albert Riera of Espanyol. Is Luque Ajax's
second choice? Ajax coach Henk ten Cate strongly denied this in
the Dutch press last week: "Luque was actually the man we
wanted, but Newcastle didn't want to talk. Then, we decided to
revert to Riera. By the time that deal had fallen through
Newcastle had changed their minds."
Followers of the English Premiership and Newcastle United in
particular will probably soon forget about Albert Luque, and
the Spanish international will probably want to forget about
his spell in England. In the red and white of Ajax he will try
to revive his career and return to 'Deportivo form'. He
will go in training with the Ajax squad on Thursday,
after the return leg against Slavia Prague, for which
he is not eligible. He will be eligible for the
rest of Ajax's European campaign. (MP)
Sources: Ajax.nl, BBC, Wikipedia
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