TRANSFER TRACKER STATUS:Signing
Real Salt Lake added to their forward line on Wednesday, when they announced that they signed 26-year-old Spanish striker Alfredo Ortuño. RSL used Targeted Allocation Money to complete the signing.
Ortuño has spent most of his career in the Spanish second division. He last played for La Liga 2 side Cadiz, scoring 17 goals and adding three assists in 42 league appearances for the club last season. He left Cadiz after his loan from La Liga club Las Palmas expired following the season, then left Las Palmas last fall following a transfer controversy between him and La Liga 2 club Real Valladolid.
“I’m very happy to be signing with Real Salt Lake and very excited to live in America,” Ortuño said in a statement released by RSL. “It’s a great opportunity for me to continue to grow as a player in a challenging environment.”
Prior to playing for Cadiz, Ortuño spent time in La Liga 2 with Mallorca, Real Zaragoza, Las Palmas and Girona. He had a brief stint in La Liga with Granada in the 2014-15 season, playing five times but failing to find the back of the net. He has 41 goals in 141 career appearances in the Spanish second division.
Real Salt Lake didn’t get a ton of production out of their center forwards last season. Luis Silva and Yura Movsisyan both had seven goals in the regular season, but both struggled with consistency and bounced in and out of the lineup throughout the year. Ortuño figures to compete with both for playing time in 2018, assuming both players are with the club come March.
“[Ortuño] has a proven track record of scoring goals at a high level in Spain,” RSL GM Craig Waibel said in the statement. “We believe he can come in, challenge the status quo and continue to push to make our team better.”
