George Bello endured back-to-back relegations to start his European career, but now has a new opportunity to shine in the Austrian Bundesliga.
Bello joined LASK on a permanent deal, signing a contract until June 2026, the club announced Friday. The former Atlanta United homegrown spent the last two seasons in Germany with Arminia Bielefeld, totaling 31 appearances in the Bundesliga and 2. Bundesliga divisions.
“With George Bello, we have secured a very exciting player on a free transfer,” said LASK Managing Director Radovan Vujanovic. “Through his outstanding speed and technical skills make him a perfect fit for our team. Job profile. He was able to gain a lot of experience at a young age and was also able to prove his skills in the German Bundesliga.”
Bello, 21, came through Atlanta United’s academy and proceeded to make 53 league appearances for the MLS club, scoring three goals and adding four assists.
He has also earned seven caps with the U.S. men’s national team, last featuring in a 5-0 Concacaf Nations League victory over Grenada in June 2022.
“From the very beginning I had the feeling that something big was going on here,” Bello said. “The playing philosophy shown to me fits very well with my strengths and I would like to do my part to ensure that we are successful together nationally and internationally are.”
LASK finished third in the Bundesliga standings behind Red Bull Salzburg and Sturm Graz. They will open their 2023-24 competitive schedule on July 21 in the Austrian Cup against SC Rothis.
Apparently they just signed their starting LB to a three year deal in May. Following Q’s lead to looks like Rene Renner (the LB) is one of their highest paid players.
As a Eurosnob, I can tell you that “Austrian Bundesliga > MLS” is not an argument I have ever made or heard.
How do you guys get so triggered when there’s no one here even taking the other side of the argument?
@quozzel This is a great analysis. Really insightful, thank you. I have always found the prevalent disdain for our domestic leagues to be sad and misguided. In every other country, no matter the size or quality, the people passionately support their domestic game (while also eating up UEFA champions league, etc). I don’t get why so many American fans hate on MLS, given it is a good league that is steadily getting better. The biggest MLS supporters I know are all foreigners who have moved to the US and didn’t come with that inferiority complex baggage.
“nO pRomOtiOn/ReGuLatIoN”
“rEtiReMeNt leAgUe”
“sALaRy cAp”
waaaahhhhh waaaahhh waaahhhh
I’ve said for years on here that if you don’t support MLS you don’t truly support the USMNT. Also, Pulisic’s book and assertion that every player should go to Europe put the fandom back at least a decade. Eurosnobs were getting aged out before that. My guess is daddy wasn’t a keen on MLS and passed that myopic view onto his son.
Mr. Coles,
“In every other country, no matter the size or quality, the people passionately support their domestic game (while also eating up UEFA champions league, etc.).”
I don’t know that that is true.
I think it’s more about their team not their league.
My furriner friends don’t seem to get instantly defensive about their best teams not being competitive with the Man Citys, Real Madrids and Bayerns of the world.
They tell me that if you put money on the table, those three teams are likely to beat any team from any league ,even MLS, nine times out of ten.
So what? Who cares? Alexi Lalas?
If you are talking about the top leagues in Europe, most of my foreign friends are more like they accept that each one of those leagues have a different style of play, a different philosophy.
Many of my furriner friends have their one child hood team they support to go along with their national team and their favorite EPL team ( most everyone has an EPL team they support).
And most of them, like MLS. It’s comparatively new, exciting and fresh.
And it doesn’t bother them that their American MLS team might not be competitive with Man City or Real Madrid.
And they also know that with so many top teams having a wide variety of player nationalities, that the idea that a national team’s competitiveness is tied directly to the health of their domestic league is bullshit.
+ MLS is doing great trending upward. The USMNT is mediocre and treading water. People used to laugh at Mexico for changing their managers as often as changed their underwear. Now they laugh at us for being “green ” and recycling our managers.
+ The EPL has been great since it started. England has been an embarrassment for the majority of the EPL’s existence.
+ Take PSG away from Lige 1 and what do you have? Yet France has been dominant since at least 1998.
+ The Netherlands is always considered competitive in every World Cup and Euro that they qualify for. But the Eredivisie is not a top league in Europe and is regularly spit on by people on SBI.
Everyone has different metrics.
As a business proposition MLS is almost certainly coming on as one of the top leagues. And their facilities are the envy of the football world.
If I’m a multi billionaire looking to get into sports an MLS team seems like a terrific proposition.
But I’m not a billionaire, so I’m not all that interested in that side of it.
“I don’t get why so many American fans hate on MLS, given it is a good league that is steadily getting better.”
That’s clearly an exaggeration.
If that was true how is it that MLS keeps growing and getting better and better?
SBI and all these sites do not represent all “American fans”.
Money talks and …………………….
Eurosnob stompin’ time: the Austrian Bundesliga is only twelve teams. It is dominated by RB Salzburg (who have an annual payroll of €18.6 million – which translates to $20.8 million dollars – which would put them second in MLS just behind Toronto FC) and Rapid Vienna (total payroll=€11.7 million euros, or $13.1 million dollars, which would put them as the 15th biggest spender in MLS, a hair behind Cincinnati FC.)
Every other team in the Austrian Bundesliga would be dead-last in total wages paid in Major League Soccer, and per soccernomics would be projected to finish dead last in MLS as well. The majority have half the budget or less of an average MLS squad.
LASK, Bello’s new team, was actually fourth in the Austrian B1, but it spent just the equivalent of $7.4 million in US dollar. LASK’s top-paid player is Robert Zulj (never heard of him), whose salary is $545,00 dollars US.
By way of comparison, Atlanta United, Bello’s old team in MLS, has a payroll this season of $15.1 million, or literally double LASK’s. Atlanta’s top-paid player is Luiz Araujo, who makes $3,600,000 dollars (or more than six times what Robert Zulj makes), and they have 11 guys who make more than Zulj did.
In other words, LASK’s best player and star would be a bench player on Atlanta United. So would Bello, by the way. Bello’s got a high ceiling and he is definitely an athlete. But do you think he would beat out Caleb Wiley? Me either.
All of this is to say, except for RB Salzburg, which would be projected to finish in the top five of MLS, and Rapid Vienna, who’d be, well, utterly average, every other team in the Austrian Bundesliga is a mile below MLS level in spending power and would be projected to finish dead-last in America.
This isn’t to dis on Bello. He was making $512,000 a year at Bielefeld in the B2 himself, which is certainly respectable, and he probably didn’t take too huge a pay cut to go to LASK. And being in Austria, one could argue, is better than being in MLS from an exposure standpoint just because it’s a European league with a lot of European scouts’ eyes on it.
But aside from that, the Austrian Bundesliga is a third the size of MLS, and its average budget is just half of MLS’s. So expect Bello to dominate unless his head is just completely not screwed on right.
And yet Global Football Rankings – and general perception, even here in the US among our perpetually self-loathing fanbase – is somehow that the Austrian Bundesliga is the 14th-best league in the world, two spots ahead of MLS, who rank just 16th by whatever arcane dark-art formula they’re using.
Okay. But soccernomics says: complete and utter bullsh!t. And it isn’t even close.
Anyhow, I’ll step off my soapbox now. And Eurosnobs, feel free to resume your disdain for all things MLS, even though it’s increasingly ridiculous.
+10000
There is a simpler and more obvious way to show just how much Salzburg dominates the AustrianBL:
From wikipedia:
Honours
Austrian Bundesliga
Champions (17): 1993–94*, 1994–95*, 1996–97*, 2006–07, 2008–09, 2009–10, 2011–12, 2013–14, 2014–15, 2015–16, 2016–17, 2017–18, 2018–19, 2019–20, 2020–21, 2021–22, 2022–23
Runners-up (4): 2005–06, 2007–08, 2010–11, 2012–13
Austrian Cup
Winners (9): 2011–12, 2013–14, 2014–15, 2015–16, 2016–17, 2018–19, 2019–20, 2020–21, 2021–22
Runners-up (5): 1973–74*, 1979–80*, 1980–81*, 1999–2000*, 2017–18