Busy summer was worth it for ace Rigo

TOMAS Rigo admits it was a strange summer as he played in big matches for Banik Ostrava while he really wanted to complete a transfer to Stoke City.

- Peter Smith

The 23-year-old Slovakia midfielder ‘was a major target for Stoke and although their interest became public knowledge it also became clear Banik were not keen to let him go as they tried to qualify for the league phase of the Europa Conference League.

So Rigo starred in a 5-4 aggregate qualifying round win over Austria Wien and then stayed for a hard-fought two legs against Celje while Stoke had to wait patiently.

“I actually just wanted to finish the transfer because it was sometimes too much for my head and I needed to focus on matches there but I knew the signing was close,” he said. “It was hard. I'd agreed with Banik to transfer here but they just wanted me to play the European matches and after that it would be done. I believed in that.

“They said after the last match that we played on the Thursday (against Celje) in the Conference League that I could go to sign the contract and I'm happy the deal was done, they kept their word.

“I had been watching the Stoke matches (in Czechia) and straight after that last game I went to Prague. I didn’t sleep, or slept something like two hours, then it was straight to the airport to go to London and then to Stoke. It was a lot of travelling and straight after I signed I was flying back to Slovakia the next day because of my national team.