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Joel Campbell - Get to Know the name

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Arsenal on loan striker Joel Campbell has a chance to be one of the best for Costa Rica.

Kevin C. Cox

Arsenal, tend to have a lot of players out on loan per their scouting in the Central America region. For some of these players, they get loaned out until they can secure a work permit. They sometimes get lost in the shuffle, but show promise for their other clubs. One such player who is a flavor of the month candidate is Olympiacos striker Joel Campbell. His goal helped beat Manchester United on the last Champions League last week.

He came up through the ranks at Saprissa, but only played three matches in three years, while also going out on loan there, to Puntarenas. He then moved to Arsenal in 2011, Joel had turned down Sevilla and Florentina in favour of making the switch to the Premier League. He had peaked the interest of the European teams based on his play with the Costa Rican under 17 and 20 teams, scoring 18 goals in 21 matches for the Ticos. He's gone on to score eight more goals for the senior team in thirty matches.

As said above he failed to gain a work permit to play in England on August 11, 2011, so he had to be farmed out to other clubs in other  countries, first he went off to FC Lorient for a season, where he scored three goals in twenty five matches for the 2011-12 season. Next it was off to La Liga and Real Betis, where he scored two goals, one against Deportivo La Coruna, and one against Levante.

He's did gain his English work permit last summer, but went off to Olympiacos where he scored against the media favourites Manchester Untied.  If you want to bug American National Team fans, say he didn't dive against Matt Besler in a World Cup Qualifier, which Besler got a yellow card and a suspension for. On October 4th 2013, FIFA reprimanded Campbell for the dive.