I’d be interested. Battaglia, from the times I’ve seen him, is less of a typical Argentine defensive midfielder that focuses purely on destroying (think Mascherano) and more of a box-to-box guy. Anyone that’s starred at Boca Juniors and has caps for Argentina is going to be a high quality player, and he’s only 29 years old to boot.

However, he’s not a DP name, and we have to accept the reality that we’re not signing a DP unless he’ll make a lot of that money back at the ticket windows and merchandise stands. Gallardo, for all his faults, helped boost attendance to over 19k in his one season. Battaglia wouldn’t have the same impact, even if I’d expect him to make a bigger impact on the field (if only due to not being as fragile as Gallardo).

If Battaglia’s willing to come here for a non-DP deal, I’d be very interested. However, I sincerely hope Payne and Kasper have a face-to-face meeting to analyze Battaglia’s level of interest. If he’s not committed to succeeding here the way, say, Schelotto is to succeeding in Columbus, then it’s not worth it. It really comes down to his attitude towards MLS; given that he’s not even 30 yet, I’d suspect he has the right mentality. Still, we already learned about the problems associated with signing guys who don’t respect MLS.