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MLS Ticker: Camilo wins Player of the Week, Fire signs tryout winner and more

Camilo (Getty Images)

Camilo's late-game heroics against Sporting Kansas City can now be called award-winning heroics.

The Vancouver Whitecaps' 22-year-old Brazilian striker was named Major League Soccer's Player of the Week after his goals in the second and third minutes of stoppage time helped his team earn an improbable 3-3 draw with SKC on Saturday.

Camilo finished off feeds from second-half substitutes Davide Chiumiento and Nizar Khalfan. His goals completed Vancouver's stunning comeback from a 3-0 deficit in the final 17-plus minutes of the match at Empire Field. Camilo bested the likes of standouts Teal Bunbury, Tally Hall and Caleb Folan to take home the league's weekly honor.

Here are a few more items from around the league:

FIRE SIGNS TRYOUT WINNER

The Chicago Fire signed Pari Pantazopoulos, winner of the team's open tryout this winter, to a first-team contract on Monday.

Pantazopoulous, a 22-year-old midfielder, is a native of Greece. He played professionally in Cyprus and in Greece before earning a trial with the Fire in January after beating out 210 other tryout attendees.

Pantazopoulos is the 29th member of the Fire's senior team, which has one open roster spot remaining.

CREW TO HOST NEWCASTLE

The Columbus Crew announced that it will be hosting Premier League club Newcastle United in an international friendly on July 26, the day before the MLS All-Star game.

The Magpies, who have already signed on to play Sporting Kansas City in another friendly this summer, played the Crew to a 2-2 draw in a friendly back in 2000.

REPORT: LEKIC JOINING REVOLUTION

Mercurial Danish striker Rajko Lekic has agreed to a contract with MLS and will join the New England Revolution pending his receipt of a work visa, according to The Boston Globe.

Lekic, most recently with Silkeborg IF in Denmark, has had a pretty successful strike rate in his career, which has taken him to stops in Denmark, Spain and Hungary.

The 29-year-old would figure to immediately join the starting lineup and provide a boost to the Revolution's attack.

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Do you think Camilo is a deserving winner of the weekly award? Can you see Pantazopoulos helping the Fire? Excited about the Newcastle-Columbus friendly? Do you think Lekic is the missing piece for the Revolution?

Share your thoughts below.

Comments

  1. you talking about Pantazopoulous? He was born in Greece, moved to Chicago. Then after HS he went back to Greece to try and play professionally. Never really latched onto his team (2nd or 3rd division). Now moved back to Chicago and won the open tryout.

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  2. I know nothing, but I looked up Lekic and this is his 11th team since ’98. I hope he works out, anything that raises play in MLS is good with me, but that’s a bad sign.

    And I know the MLS and Euro calendars aren’t aligned, but it’s still kind of weird to play exhibition games in the middle of the real season. That’s straight out of 1910’s baseball or 1950’s NBA, hopefully when MLS is a respected league in 20 years we’ll look back on all this as an oddity.

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  3. Also, I read last week that he is INFAMOUS for being an absolute cancer in every locker room he has ever been in (stevie nicol doesn’t seem like the type to tolerate immaturity, but ahhem cough there is the whole shalerie joseph thing?). . . hopefully it works out and he can spark things up there offensively, i think they have a lot of very high quality complimentary players but no true out and out finisher/poacher.

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  4. Not too familiar with Lekic but hopefully he can bring a goal scoring presence up front. There is no out and out goalscorer on the team and I just don’t trust Schilawski to anchor the attack throughout the season.

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