He Bolivar presented the Catalan midfielder on Thursday Alex Granell (35) as his reinforcement to face the round of 16 of the Copa Libertadores against Flamengo from Brazil and fight for the title of the Bolivian championship. The former Girona player begins his second stage in the Bolivian Academy after his first stint in the ‘celestes’ ranks between 2020 and 2022when he won the title of that last year’s season.
“We have some great things to achieve and I’m looking forward to enjoying them,” said the 35-year-old Spaniard, who will wear number 6 this season, during his presentation. He also mentioned that he had been following Bolívar since he left and that “the people, the club and the workers” of the club were the factors that influenced his return.
The footballer, whose last club was Belgian side Lommel SK, joined the team during the pre-season in Peru and the ‘Ciudad de los Reyes’ play-offs involving Sporting Cristal and Alianza Lima from that country, as well as Atlético Nacional from Colombia.
Granell said that this experience helped him a lot “to understand the game idea” of Argentine coach Flavio Robatto and he considered that his adaptation “is very good” since he shared a locker room with several of the players who now make up the squad. He pointed out that “a historic, exciting and magical match is coming up” for the round of 16 of the Libertadores against Flamengo and that the team will work to get a good result in Brazil. Bolívar will visit ‘Fla’ in Rio de Janeiro on August 15 and then will close the qualifying round in La Paz on the 22nd of that month.
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The ‘Academia’ was reinforced with Brazilian defender Anderson de Jesús and Bolivian goalkeeper Rubén Cordano. For its part, it felt the departure of its top scorer, also Brazilian Francisco ‘Chico’ da Costa who joined the ranks of Cerro Porteño of Paraguay. The president of Bolívar, Marcelo Claure, recently said that the club is “in the final stages of defining the two new forwards” of the team to fill the position left by Da Costa and reinforce the forward line.
