Good luck to Cole Bassett!

Today the Rapids and Feyenoord made official what had previously leaked, Cole Bassett has moved to Europe.  He's going on an 18-month loan with an option to buy.  As part of the deal Bassett has signed an contract extension through 2024 with Colorado, so if at the end of the 2022-23 Dutch season Feyenoord decides they don't want to keep him he'll come back to Colorado.  There is a fee for the load being paid to Colorado, and the buy option in the loan includes a sell-on clause for the Rapids to get part of any transfer fee Feyenoord would negotiate if they sold him.

We've known for a while that Bassett had his eye on Europe, and this was really a best case scenario for both him and the club.  The negotiated fee + the loan fee is reportedly bigger than the $2 million Antwerp paid for Vines, and Cole gets to test himself in Europe with an 18 month period to prove he belongs.  I wish him nothing but luck!

For fans wanting to track how Cole is doing, the Dutch Eredivisie is available on ESPN+.  It appears most games are at 4am MT on Sundays.  This Sunday ESPN+ will be showing the Feyenoord game but I assume that's going to be too soon for Bassett to make an appearance.  After this week the team has two weeks off for World Cup qualifiers, and ESPN hasn't posted the February schedule of games they'll be showing yet.

Also, unlike Sam Vines at Royal Antwerp, Feyenoord's official team shop does ship to the U.S. and already has Bassett as an option for customized name and number on a jersey.  On the down side though, the jersey, name, number, and shipping will set you back about $160.

Speaking of Sam Vines, Cole had a friend show up to help him settle in to his new home:

Credit: Richard Fleming on Twitter

Rotterdam (where Feyenoord is) and Antwerp are about 100km apart, or about a 30 minute train ride.  So I wouldn't be surprised if we get more pictures of these two while they're so close together.