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Reigning AIFF Player of the Year Syed Rahim Nabi has been offered a mid-season trial by USA’s MLS outfit DC United, Sportskeeda can confirm.
Nabi has signed with AIFF’s commercial partners IMG-Reliance to play in the proposed IPL-style tournament and is thus without an I-League club at the moment. It was learnt IMG-R are looking at the MLS proposal positively.
The 27-year-old is expected to get a green signal from IMG-R to go ahead with the trial but the player himself is not keen on going anytime soon, due to national team commitments in the upcoming international friendly against Tajikistan next month and the SAFF Cup in Nepal from September 1 onwards.
Nabi doesn’t want go to before the conclusion of the SAFF Cup and that will end his hopes of securing a contract for this season’s MLS as the secondary transfer window closes on August 8.
But a source close to the versatile player revealed that Nabi still has a good chance of securing a permanent move for next season. The next MLS transfer window will open in January next year but the league doesn’t start until March so even if Nabi secures a move, there will be the option of loaning him to an IPL franchise for IMG-R’s proposed tournament, which is also expected to start in January 2014.
“They already know about him but want to see him in a few practice sessions and practice games so the trial will likely be for around a week or ten days,” said the source.
Till now, Sunil Chhetri remains the only Indian to play for a MLS team, having featured for the Kansas City Wizards back in 2010 while teenager Pratik Shinde has also played for a couple of semi-professional teams in USA.
DC United is a franchise based in Washington and is considered to be one of the most successful MLS teams. But they are currently bottom of the Eastern Conference in the 2013 MLS.
