Happy days ... Archie Thompson is certainly enjoying having Marcos Flores in the team. Source: News Limited
Latin America is a rich talent pool for European football and Australia's A-League also has started scooping the rewards.
This is the view of the man who brought Argentine Marco Flores to Adelaide.
| P | W | D | L | GD | Pts | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Central Coast | 9 | 6 | 2 | 1 | 9 | 20 |
| 2 | Adelaide | 9 | 6 | 1 | 2 | 6 | 19 |
| 3 | Victory | 9 | 5 | 1 | 3 | -1 | 16 |
| 4 | Newcastle | 9 | 4 | 1 | 4 | -3 | 13 |
| 5 | Wellington | 9 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 12 |
| 6 | Perth | 9 | 3 | 2 | 4 | 0 | 11 |
| 7 | Brisbane | 9 | 3 | 1 | 5 | 1 | 10 |
| 8 | Western Sydney | 9 | 3 | 1 | 5 | -3 | 10 |
| 9 | Heart | 9 | 2 | 3 | 4 | -1 | 9 |
| 10 | Sydney | 9 | 2 | 1 | 6 | -10 | 7 |
Out of 60 first division clubs from England, Italy and Spain, only eight Barclays Premier League clubs (or 14 per cent) have not signed Latin footballers, compared with four of the 10 A-League clubs, or 40 per cent.
Uruguayan-born FIFA agent Jose Martinez says Latin America has an abundance of five-star players willing to storm the A-League just like Melbourne Victory's Flores.
"Marcos was impressive and I showed (Reds director) Michael Petrillo the DVD of him playing in Chile in December 2008," Martinez said.
"When Adelaide wanted to see him the FFA was running Adelaide at the time so (former Reds assistant) Carl Veart came with me to Chile.
"It took me a while to convince them about Marcos but in November 2009 they signed the paperwork in La Plata in Argentina before he arrived in 41C in Adelaide in January, 2010."
Flores will play at Hindmarsh Stadium for Victory on Friday night for the first time since he left the Reds after a sloppy divorce in 2011.
After the Argentinian rejected an Adelaide contract extension, which would have boosted his salary to $340,000 - after signing a two-year deal initially for $275,000 - the club sold Adelaide's most popular player to Henan in China.
The 2011 Johnny Warren medal winner was placed on the transfer market and offloaded for about $400,000 in June last year.
Adelaide had their chance to re-sign Flores when Henan agreed to an early release but it was Victory who snapped up the popular midfielder.
Flores was at the time adamant he gave the Reds first option to sign him.
But negotiations with Adelaide did not progress beyond initial talks, which made some Reds fans turn on United for failing to re-secure the journeyman.
Adelaide's Osama Malik is tipped to shadow Flores if Victory coach Ange Postecoglou fields the playmaker in midfield alongside Brazilian gun Guilherme Finkler.
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