Bacuna deal is finished; 3 years and a friendly with Groningen

Well this is escalating quickly. It hasn't even been an hour since I last wrote about Leandro Bacuna, and now the Dutch website Voetbal International is reporting that the midfielder from FC Groningen has signed a 3-year deal with Aston Villa. Included in the story is that as part of the deal Groningen and Aston Villa will play a friendly at some point, likely next year.

Mat Kendrick doesn't go as far as this story, but in reference to a tweet in which he said fans could be buying Tonev, Okore, and Ocuna kits before long, he said the following:

I left Helenius off that list for two reasons a) I ran out of twitter characters b) it's not quite as close at Bacuna and Okore deals #avfc

— Mat Kendrick (@MatKendrick) June 13, 2013

Seems like this is a sure thing. Welcome to Birmingham, Leandro!

You'll also notice that the story mentions Ron Vlaar, Aston Villa's other Dutch player. So if all of the rumours we've heard this summer are true, we'll have two Dutchmen (Vlaar, Bacuna), two Bulgarians (Tonev, Popov), and two Danes (Helenius, Okore). What I'm trying to say is you should all probably buy an umbrella, because God has apparently told Paul Lambert to build an ark and collect two footballers from every country before the flood comes.

UPDATE: FC Groningen is now confirming the move on their website. I'm not sure we'll recognize this club come August.