Good Monday morning Caps fans, hope you all had a peaceful weekend and are back with your nose to the grindstone (though hopefully not too hard).

There isn’t much to report in Capsland, what with a brief chance for everyone to catch their breath before Saturday’s trip to Toronto FC. Results have gone Vancouver’s way as much as can be expected and, if they are able to maximize their game in hand, getting up to second or third in the west is on the table. Now that I wrote that, it’ll probably be a jinx and we’ll lose Saturday but oh well!

In a bit of good transfer news for the Caps, reports out of Brazil suggest Fortaleza will activate their purchase option on Caio Alexandre. The amount looks like it is $2.5 million, a touch more than the Caps paid for 60% of Alexandre’s rights from Botafogo and it will go down as one of the most expensive deals in the Brazilian club’s history.

That’s a bit of decent business for the Caps in the sense that there was nothing in Alexandre’s time in Vancouver that suggests the club should be able to recoup their initial outlay. Despite the high expectations of, well, everyone, Alexandre came to the Caps at probably the worst possible time, had a checkered injury record and never was able to show any level of consistency.

Part of the boon in buying youngsters with some level of resale value is, even if the transfer winds up being a bust, you’ll be able to get a decent fee for them. Deiber Caicedo could wind up falling into this category, though he is more a victim of not messing with the current system than showing out poorly in Vancouver.

But there is a parallel universe in which the Caps didn’t bring Alexandre in during the dark ages but instead are using him in the Alessandro Schopf role to good effect. While he has played only sparringly during Fortaleza’s Copa Sudamericana run, Alexandre has certainly been getting minutes in the league and has two goals and two assists in roughly 1,700 minutes of play.

Caio will still need to up his level if he wants a European transfer, though at 24 years old that seems well within the realm of possibility. For Vancouver, their accountant will likely be happy but it will be another case of wondering about the one that got away.

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