It was a journey that’s been a bit misunderstood from the outside looking in, but at the weekend I was able to catch up with our boy, newly minted Columbus Crew striker Pat Noonan about everything that’s gone on in the first 8 months of 2008.

Dunny - In January you were dealing with your contract option not being picked up, how hard was that?

Pat - There’s no question it was difficult not having my option picked up with New England. Any time you have spent 5 good years with a team and performed for them you don’t expect that to happen. I understand I was injured too much towards the end of the contract but I still did many good things for the organization and thought I deserved what I was making.

Dunny - The decision to sign with Aalesund was seemingly a good one, but with injuries and coaching decisions you didn’t get the opportunities that were promised. What were some of the frustrations you felt knowing you’d picked up your life and made a major decision to go to Norway? Especially with Elvira going over there with you?

(more…)

The ongoing battle between MLS, New England Revolution and the Columbus Crew finally ended today as our boy Pat Noonan was re-acquired by Major League Soccer and the Revolution, then promptly traded to the Columbus Crew for their 2009 1st Round Pick, Allocation Money and ended with swapping their Allocation Spots as the Revs now have the Number 3 position and the Crew down to the 10th.

All of the haggling surrounding Noonan’s return to Major League Soccer revolved initially on Noonan leaving for free at the beginning of 2008 after the Revolution wanted him to take a significant pay cut. With MLS understandably unwilling to pay to get him back in the league even though Columbus had the funds and the right numbers for Noonan to come back, it took two months for the deal to finalize.

The Revolution get ALOT out of this deal as they are in a great situation without Noonan, top of the table in the East, not on the hook for his salary AND (the most important part) they never used or was allocated anything for the initial loss of Noonan when he signed for Norwegian side Aalesunds FK.

image via Wiki

It’s been a definite culture change. I’m in a small town of about 45,000 people. They are very passionate about the team. Anywhere you go people will know who the AAFK (our team) players are. It is by far the biggest sport in the town and what many fans live for.

The weather has been pretty crazy since i got over here. It can rain, snow and then be sunny within an hour. I’ve never seen anything like it. I have already trained in snow about 5-10 times. In the summers though the weather is supposed to be amazing. It is also light out 20 hours a day. The dark time comes around 2am and lasts til about 6am and I am looking
forward to those days.

It has been great having Adin Brown here to guide me in the right direction. It didn’t take too long to figure out the town but he was my taxi the first couple weeks and I realized he is one of the biggest icons here. I’m not sure why but the people around here love him…j/k. Even though almost everybody in the locker room speaks English, it’s still nice to have a fellow American there as well, although he is definitely the prankster there. There are stories that I couldn’t believe he was doing to people (and I can’t say here). It’s one thing in the states but here where it is a different culture, I wouldn’t expect it as much but that’s just his style…and it works.

Game days are a little different because we travel the day of the game…both to and from, but most flights are under 2 hours wherever we are playing so it’s not too bad and seems like you are hardly away from home.

Pat

Here’s a little Norwegian interview on Adin.

Check out our boy Pat Noonan of Norway’s Tippeligaen side Aalesund FC repping the Bumpy Pitch Atlanta Apollos shirt.

Keep up the good work over the kid. We, along with many other MLS fans (and maybe a few Revolution staff) miss you man.

Just a little idea of what Pat Noonan will be seeing today as he jets in to Aalesund to meet up with former Rev Adin Brown and his new teammates who are preparing for life once again in the Tippeligaen. PS - Aalesund is also the former club of John Arse Riise and another former Rev, Paulo Dos Santos.

(image via mlsnet.com)

Ask any player about the worst, most agonizing time in his professional career and you’re bound to hear about the dreaded “Option Not Picked Up”.  Case in point, Mr. Pat Noonan.   The former Hoosier last year signed a very lucrative deal with the NE Revs, only to have them not pick the option up for 2008, thus making him a semi-free agent.  We’ll never know the exact $$ or bonus structure of the contract (which may very well be why NE declined the option), but when you’re in National Team camp and you’re not getting paid, you better believe people are talking about it.

Now with Noonan exploring his options overseas (very good time with all of Scandinavia watching), things could happen pretty rapidly and we highly doubt that the Revs want to lose No.11 with all the shit going down with Taylor.  Some people are thinking out loud that the Scandinavian leagues are a joke, but look at Danny Califf.  He doesn’t seem to be doing so bad in UEFA Cup competitions.