Luciano Beechio has signed for Argentinian side Club Atlético Belgrano after being released from Norwich City on May 27th.
The Primera Division side are situated in Cordoba, where Luciano Becchio was born and grew up. After such a torrid time at Norwich, making just 13 appearances, it’s likely he wants a fresh start in an environment he’s used to. At 31 years of age, Becchio does not have an enormous amount of time left in his career, and there’s no doubt his peak has passed. This career choice therefore makes perfect sense for a player who has practically wasted the last two seasons sitting in the reserves for Norwich.
The infamous swap deal in January 2013 now looks as if it was purely for the purpose of ridding Norwich of the troublemaker that was Steve Morison. But at the time many fans were excited about the prospect; Becchio had scored 19 goals by January 2013, and the price of an unwanted, disinterested Morison plus £200,000 seemed fairly reasonable.
His contract was terminated by mutual consent in May, and he left the club along with Carlos Cuellar, Javier Garrido, Mark Bunn, Sam Kelly and Callum McFadden.
Questions still remain as to whether he deserved more of a chance at Norwich. Generally, the consensus is yes he did, but a handful of managers have been and gone and none have seen much in him. Does that speak volumes?
In reality, he didn’t have much pace, lacked the technical ability to play in the Premier League and was perhaps just a less desirable option than the other strikers we’ve had in recent times. Then again, it’s probably true that he wasn’t actively given the opportunity to showcase the talent that made him so successful at Leeds. Judging a player on a string of cameo substitute appearances does seem to be unfair.
