Sebastian Soto endured a frustrating time with English Football League Championship side Norwich City, but now has a new opportunity for consistent playing time elsewhere.
Soto has joined Austria Klagenfurt on a permanent deal from Norwich City, the two clubs announced Thursday. The 22-year-old did not make a single appearances for Norwich City during his time in England, heading out on three separate loan spells.
“With Sebastian, we are getting a desired player who we have been watching closely for some time,” said Managing Director Sport Matthias Imhof. “It is very flexible, can be used in attack on the wings, in the center and behind the tip. The guy is technically strong, fast and determined. His scoring rate speaks for itself and we see great potential that he will continue to develop.”
Soto’s best season came with Dutch club Telstar in 2021, scoring seven goals in 12 appearances in the Eerste Divisie. A former Hannover academy player, Soto made five appearances in the Bundesliga before eventually transferring to Norwich City in 2020.
While at Norwich City, Soto was loaned to Telstar, Porto B, and Livingston, totaling 32 combined appearances.
“The people in charge of Austria made a great effort to help me and showed me what goals the association has set itself for the next few years and what role I should play,” Soto said. “I immediately had a good feeling and am happy that the transfer worked. I’m looking forward to the team and can’t wait to be on the pitch with the other guys. For me, this change is an important step in my career.”
Soto has earned two caps with the U.S. men’s national team, scoring twice in a 6-2 friendly win over Panama in 2020. He also excelled for the USMNT U-20’s, totaling six goals in 11 appearances, including four goals at the 2019 FIFA U-20 World Cup.
Austria Klagenfurt sits eighth in the Bundesliga table through five matches played.
Hopefully a lesson learned as well. Feels like he’s taken some bad career advice and wasted prime development years. The talent has always been there.
I don’t think that’s true, if it was just bad advice he dominates in Scotland instead of struggling to get meaningful minutes. If it was just bad advice why does he make 2 early starts for Porto B getting 1g 1a and then vanish to the bench. Maybe he’s had a series of nagging injuries we don’t know about. He was on trial with League One Barnsley before being sent back to Norwich in July because he had an undisclosed foot injury.
hopefully a fresh start for a forgotten man. good level to try to reboot.
I don’t know if he couldn’t make it in Scotland can he make it in Austria?
I watched a few games of his at Livingston, and they couldn’t get him the ball and also the way when balls are delivered to him, he’s not suited to that type of style. He’s not a target player.
If he was playing at Celtic or Rangers, then he would have easy goals since those teams have talent who can get him the ball in final third of the field.
Similar to Pepi’s struggles at Augsburg. They don’t have the talent around him to get him the ball in the final third, and he has to fight for every half chance to even make things interesting, rather than just tappig in balls or finish off ground passes in prime areas of the box.
He’s a good player, just needs same level of players around him to feed the ball for him to succeed. It’s not going to work when you put a good player surrounded by sub-standard players, and they play a different style than he’s accustomed to.
That doesn’t really explain why he wasn’t able to beat out an English journeyman forward who’s highest level before Livingston was the English 5th division where he had a career high 5 goals. He’s also not going to have a ton of talented players with him at Klagenfurt.