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LIVERPOOL, England -- Last Friday, as the final tense hours of the summer transfer period ticked away, most eyes in this region were turned to the late-breaking sagas of American Clint Dempsey and Mexican Giovani Dos Santos. In the end, both North American superstars got their wished-for transfers, which should prove beneficial down the road for two of CONCACAF's most dominant national teams. But another, somewhat less noticed Premier League switch should, with time, prove just as important to a different CONCACAF power.
Like Dempsey and - formerly - Dos Santos, Bryan Oviedo on Friday found himself a Premier League player. The 22-year-old Costa Rican still needed to sort out work permit issues, but the precocious left-footed sparkplug is otherwise set to join Everton for the whole of the 2012-13 English Premier League campaign.
The move marks yet another step up the club ranks for the left back, who burst onto the international radar screen during Costa Rica's semifinal run at the 2009 Under-20 World Cup, earning a transfer to European football. Now, after just a few years in the Danish League with FC Copenhagen, Oviedo is set to move on again, this time to a league many consider the best in the world.
Chalk that success up to hard work and determination, but also to Oviedo's increasing positional flexibility on the left side. Once a primarily defensive player, the left footer now slots in anywhere up and down that flank, an attribute which the Everton coaching staff found attractive as they recruited him.
"In terms of him as a player, he can fill in multiple positions for us," Everton assistant coach Steve Round told reporters on Friday. "He can play left back, left midfield and left wing, all the way down the left, which will help us and give us good cover in the squad."
Of course when it comes to shifting positions, players are sometimes less keen than managers. So it helps that Oviedo agrees wholeheartedly with the Everton coach's assessment.
"I am a player who likes to attack," he told the club's official website on Friday. "I can help in attack, but also in defense as well. I can play both positions. I played many years as left-back, now I have been playing further forward."
The ability to fit at more than one position should help the Ciudad Quesada-native find playing time quickly in England, but Oviedo is under no illusions about the fight he'll have on his hands to get on the field at Goodison Park. The Saprissa youth product knows that clinching a spot will be a challenge in an Everton team that consistently finishes in the top half of the Premier League table.
"I need to come here and work hard for a place," he said. "I know there are very good players and I will need to train very well to have a chance of getting in the team. I know a lot about Everton, I watch Everton games and Premier League games on the TV, and it is a very good league."
In that case, Oviedo will know that Everton's left back spot is held down by none other than Leighton Baines, an occasional English international. So when he's not spelling the veteran left back, Oviedo's short term fit could well be out wide in the Toffees' midfield, where Everton was looking for some help.
But no matter the immediate battles facing the young Costa Rican, the future is certainly more promising than ever for Oviedo, as he leads a new generation of Costa Rican footballers breaking new ground in Europe. No fewer than eight of the players called by Jorge Luis Pinto for this week's FIFA World Cup qualifying home-and-away against Mexico ply their trade on the Old Continent, making for a Tico side as deep as ever in Europe-based talent.
Mired in a scrap to advance from a competitive semifinal World Cup qualifying group that includes El Salvador and Guyana as well as El Tri, Costa Rica's upcoming matches will go a long way towards determining its fate for Brazil 2014, as the Ticos look to return to the World Cup after missing out by the narrowest of margins on South Africa 2010. But with players like Oviedo, Joel Campbell and Celso Borges establishing themselves in the national team squad and on the rise with clubs abroad, ahead of what are sure to be long and successful careers in European club football, the future of Costa Rican football has never looked brighter.
