So many very good players in the past Leitao, matias, aranalde and junior and then some pretty decent ones like herivelto, tholot
Haven’t had one for years. Is this an area we are missing out on ?
I think we might have Brexit to thank for that 
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Just couldn’t help yourself could you 
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Any half decent player would get a visa, Brexit hasn’t effected it
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Gino Padula. A fine player.
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Good thread and something I’ve wondered about too. Most of those players (Jorge, Pedro, Zigor, Gabby) came when we were championship or league one, so being in league two has got something to do with it I’m sure. I can’t think of many other league two clubs with foreign imports? Tomas Holy who used to play for Carlisle springs to mind.
Brexit also a factor.
Evan Weir I guess counts as one though.
A bigger question for me is why we aren’t seeing more American or Canadian players? A top league two footballer even at Walsall is still on decent money and I’d have thought we could tempt someone from across the pond - particularly on the understanding that we’ll put them in the shop window.
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The Uk and Ireland have freedom of movement, so Weir isn’t affected by Brexit.
In fact Weir is one of many Irish players currently at Walsall
Also I’m not denying Brexit has had an impact in this area, but it seems we stopped signing European players long before Brexit anyway.
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Yes, really good point and it was an area Crawley benefitted with their player Jeremy Kelly.
Seeing as we have North American investors I would have thought we’d see something in this area too.
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Most of the foreign players came when Paul Taylor was involved in the club.We clearly have not got anyone doing a similar role.
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We had them under Kenny in Div 4.
Was always something we did that was a bit different and certainly gave us the edge
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I did think trivela would have signed an American player . At minimum for the exposure
Suntan Man certainly signed some average players, but he also signed some great gems too that we massively benefitted from.
Players of the class of Jorge, Junior for example we could certainly do with finding right now as I’m sure they would of been on less money than even the average players being signed by others are today.
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I think that is incorrect, unless you define “half-decent” as an international. The criteria include:
“the number of international appearances the player has made, the number of minutes the player has featured in domestic or continental competition, the success of the player’s previous club and the quality of the domestic league in which that club competes.”
It does not take into account the level we play at. Like it or not, Brexit has been the reason we no longer pick up European players.
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I’d agree and this seems to be a very big gap in our scouting network
The visa rules apply to all countries except Ireland.
Completety forgot about paudula. God yes a fine full back he was
And then who could forget The French 2 Peron and Boli. And Bukran the Hungarian player. Wonderful midfielder
We seem to not have the scouting network in place to identify gems like these
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Not convinced that Brexit is the issue. There seem to be loads of names that pop up on Teamsheets in League 1, 2 and national league. They are clearly not players of English heritage but could be based live and work on England. I’m sure regulations are an issue but it’s also an issue that we don’t have a Paul Taylor at the club whos net was cast far and wide into for example the depths of the slovakian 2nd division or Bundesliga 3. There are still people at the club who knew Paul Taylor was so important to Walsall so why aren’t they finding another
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It is. Visas valid at Brexit continued but no new ones. It works in the PL because they only sign the best. Players in lower European or other leagues do not really stand much chance. It is nothing to do with not having a Paul Taylor.
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That maybe so but we stopped recruiting from abroad years before the Brexit deal so at some point we decided to restrict our recruitment to the UK and Ireland. We could change that policy as others have said but clearly with the current visa requirements it would not be so easy.
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That is a different issue.
In fact, who was our last “European” player?