Alan Pulido needs to be careful what he wishes for. There’s no guarantee trading Chivas for a European club would work out for the Mexican attacker.
There was a time when many Mexico fans hoped Alan Pulido would emerge as their nation’s next great attacker. At 27 years of age, it’s clear that isn’t going to happen for the diminutive forward. Now, he claims he wants to leave Chivas for greener pastures in Europe.
We say greener pastures because this is almost certainly a financial decision for Pulido. There’s nothing about the way he’s currently playing football for Chivas that would indicate he needs a new challenge. If anything, his inability to score consistently in Liga MX might indicate he needs to find a lesser challenge.
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To date, he’s only managed to find the back of the net one time in six league appearances this season. That’s what makes his recent admission that he wants to move to a European club so interesting. His transfer value certainly is not at its peak.
Ironically, he did draw significant interest from Rayados in the previous window. Per reports, Pulido didn’t have any interest in making a move to another Mexican club. It’ll be a financially advantageous move to Europe or nothing if it’s left entirely in his hands.
The right thing for Pulido to do if he wants to actually achieve that dream, would be to start scoring goals for Chivas on a regular basis. His club currently finds itself 10th in Liga MX standings. Some of their struggles to move up the table are a direct result of their inability to count on Pulido for goals.
Savvy European clubs keep a close eye on what’s going on within Liga MX. Any team with a decent scouting department knows that Pulido isn’t in a good patch of form at the moment. No quality club is going to bid for him unless he starts to play much better football.
In truth, Pulido’s lack of stature limits his suitors as well. Even if he does go on a goal scoring binge for Chivas, questions about his ability to play in a more physical league are going to remain. Strikers who check in at 5-foot-9, 150 pounds aren’t exactly en vogue across Europe. There are, of course, exceptions to that rule, but they’re only granted to attackers who score goals at an exceedingly high level.
In the end, Chivas fans don’t have anything to worry about. Pulido would need to start playing much better for their club if he’s going to engineer a move away to Europe. Right now, he only has the desire to play on a different continent. Until he gets the game to go with that desire, he’ll be staying put.