Something usually has to go wrong for a player of Leo Sena’s calibre to land at an A-League club. In the case of the Brazilian midfielder, who has signed a two-year deal with Sydney FC, it all started with COVID.
But they weren’t the only ones impressed. Fiorentina, one of Italy’s biggest clubs, were taken by him, too, and had agreed terms to buy him from Spezia for $17 million for the following season. Italy has famously strict legislation which blocks anyone with heart-based irregularities from playing professional sport; those laws forced Christian Eriksen, after his heart attack at Euro 2020, to leave Inter Milan and continue his club career in England, albeit for different medical reasons to Sena.
More than two years after his last appearance for Spezia, and after wrestling with his lost confidence in his body and even contemplating an early retirement, Sena finally returned to professional football with Bulgarian club Lokomotiv Plovdiv last season, and at the start of this year, signed with Brazilian club Água Santa on a short-term deal to give him flexibility for a move this season.And that’s where Sydney FC come in, having tracked him for some time.