RudyAlvarado.com
Arsenal have signed 15 year old Swedish defender Kristopher Da Graca following a successful trial.
The promising youngster, who has emerged through the ranks at Gothenburg-based side Hisingsbacka FC, had previously spent time on trial with Arsenal’s North London rivals Tottenham Hotspur, as well as Chelsea, Aston Villa and Malmo.
However, after impressing during a short spell at London Colney, he will now move to the club on a permanent basis, although he will not be eligible to sign scholarship terms until next summer as he was born in June 1998.
The player himself confirmed the move in the Swedish media. He said: “It’s wonderful, it’s like a dream come true. I cannot describe how excited I am about this.”
Da Graca, who usually operates as a centre-back but can also play as a defensive-midfielder, is likely to be eased into English football slowly and will begin life at Arsenal in the U16 side, but could feature for the U18s as the campaign progresses. He joins fellow Swedish youngsters Kristoffer Olsson and Jamaal Raage at the club, but is also eligible to represent Bosnia and Herzegovina internationally owing to his heritage.
via @HirooNakamura
Jeorge Bird's Arsenal Youth 
A new signing. Yeah!!
Oh wait….
I live i Sweden. And in the same city as this kid. If I can find any information I will tell you.
He’s playing on Wednesday in the Champions League.
His timing is rather poor,given every response will highlight the ineptitude of our transfer market abilities. I wish him all the best in the youth ranks!
Stupidness,we ar talkin of playerz dat would strenghten our squad so dat we can challenge 4 d tittle
Stupidness is the way you type. Go back to school and learn how to spell. What’s wrong with kids these days?
Olsson, raage, graca and possible jajic. We seem to be going big on scandanavia and Sweden in particular. Hope it works out better than our exploits in Switzerland (angha, monteiro, hajrovic, djorou)
chelsea is getting their swedish players from one particular club. That club has many players close to me and its one of the smallest club in Gothenburg but they are top class in technical ability. Its nice to see what I have thought for a long time, sweden got talents but the local clubs here doesn’t know how to develop them and use their abilities. I think there will be more swedish kids in Arsenal in the future as I see some really great players and they are beating top international clubs around the world in the U14.
Its a good market I think as many swedish kids are humble and work hard.
Must have been seriously impressive though. Olsson and raage were both surveyed as trialled for about a year. This guys hardly been here for a week!
captain on wednesday night hopefully.
before anyone else makes another stupid quip connecting this to the first team just remember this: THIS IS A F*CKING YOUTH BLOG!! if you want to vent your frustrations about the first team go to Arseblog you’ll find plenty of people to commiserate with!
i agree to that ……totally
Well done ,,, but we need somone who is capable to play in first team….
For those of you whining, kindly f**k off. This is a youth blog, the signing of players in their prime won’t be a subject for discussion here
Good but not enough to solve solve the injuries we have now
His Swedish club is Hisingsbacka FC from Hisings-Backa not Hisingsangen Backa 🙂
Surely didn’t even need a trial he is bigger than the door that will do!!
Seriously anyone know if he is left or right footed. We desperately need another left back/left sided CB at all 3 levels at the moment.
We dont need teenagers at this moment in time. We need quality players who can help us avoid a disaster
its good to build up the youth team there is no Stupidness in this at..losing to villa was a eye opener for us the fan’s wenger and the board..all the talk over summer was a joke.you don’t tell people how much you have in your pocket.because other clubs will play hard ball then wenger bottles it over and over again WE WANT ARE CLUB BACK..ARSENAL TILL WE DIE.
first of all its “our” not “are.” second, it was Gazidis who said we had 70 million to spend not Wenger, and thirdly, GO TO F*CKING ARSEBLOG!
Firstly, Arsenal and Gazidis have never said anything about how much money is available for transfers. Gazidis only mentioned that the new sponsorship deals increase the revenues significantly and Arsenal will soon reach the revenue level of FC Bayern München. FCB has been profitable over the past 20+ successive seasons and Arsenal is correctly following the same path.
Secondly, the total financial package is the decisive factor, not the media speculations about the transfer fees. The transfer fees are only a small portion of the total package. Every REAL football fan knows the complicated structure of transfers, different kind of clauses and a variety of wage payments, signing fees and bonuses. Therefore the media clowns’ stories about transfer fees and player wages are nothing but lies and they cheat the public. Hopefully you don’t have blind faith in the politicians and the same way people should not believe especially the British football media.
Thirdly, Arsenal has a very strong base of talented footballers and more are coming up from the Academy. Therefore the club focuses on top players and they will not move until the dominos start falling. Rubbish players are easily available, but available top players are very scarce and Arsenal is not the only club signing the players. Of course, everyone is available for transfer if you pay three times the value of the player, but there’s very little sense in that. Big transfer fee = big signing fee = big wages = big bonuses = big agent fee = big insurance payment = big tax payment. That all put together is a massive total financial package! The player transfer and contract negotiations ARE NOT like going to the supermarket to buy a case of beer and paying it at the cashier. Unfortunately too many people think the negotiations are just easy and quick and everything is dependent on Arsenal’s actions and the whole world is spinning around Arsenal.
Football Manager 2014 is coming out soon and that should be the basic learning curve for all the football media and so-called “fans”. The game would be useful also for the professional footballers and managers, because the comments they make are absolutely incredible. It’s laughable these players and managers don’t even have a clue about their own clubs’ finances. A little bit of logical thinking and basic business studies are needed also in football world. Thinking with brains has never been hurtful for anyone.
Well said 🙂 Except your last point, thinking hurts my head 😛
Wellngton silva came on at the 68th minute for real murcia which was a pleasant surprise considering he just joint. Know we’ve been here before but seemed to have a good game judging from this report. If you can’t be bothered reading the whole thing go to the second paragraph under ‘the miracle was close’ though the translation is pretty dicy as usual
http://translate.google.co.uk/translate?hl=en&sl=es&u=http://www.goldelmurcia.es/noticia-/226/El-Real-Murcia-se-queda-a-medio-reaccionar-y-cae-ante-el-Recre-(2-3)&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dwellington%2Bsilva%2Breal%2Bmurcia%26client%3Dsafari%26sa%3DX%26hl%3Den-gb%26biw%3D1024%26bih%3D672%26tbs%3Dqdr:d
Kristoffer is a tall centre-back with good footballing abilities. Right footed and can play as a defensive midfielder. Likes to bring the ball out from the back and is a decent all-round footballer. Needs to improve his defensive abilities(ironically for a centre-back). Potential is there but his attitude has been in question. Wish him the best of luck!
Here’s a longer interview in Swedish with him: http://beautyfootball.se/exklusiv-intervju-kristopher-da-graca-pa-vag-till-arsenal-fc/
At arsenal I look forward to him excelling his career and probably featuring for the senior team in future
Reblogged this on GUŽVA U ŠESNAESTERCU and commented:
Niko i nikad nije ni pokušao kontaktirati Bosanca u FC Arsenalu !
Sutra bi se ipak moglo čuti, ako i kad bude zaigrao A selekciju Švedske, tada će bh. mediji pisati o izdajniku, kao što danas pišu o Seferoviću i Gačinoviću – bravo Piriću i Jaha, bez vas dvojice bh. mešetari bi crkli od gladi, bravo Malkočeviću i Karačiću, iz vaših se selekcija niko nikad nije uspio nametnuti u neki evropski veliki klub.