(Football news) Manchester City are set to sign Stefan Ortega from Arminia Bielefeld as he has agreed personal terms with Manchester City ahead of his summer transfer to the Etihad Stadium. The 29-year-old has spent his entire career at Arminia as he was on a three-year loan spell with 1860 Munich and is highly rated in Germany. While he has never been capped by the German national side, he was subsequently on standby for their Euro 2020 squad last summer.
He is now finalising a move to City and looks set to become their second goalkeeper to Ederson, with USMNT goalkeeper Zack Steffen likely to leave on loan. Veteran goalkeeper Scott Carson also signed a one year contract extension at Etihad recently. Ortega was linked with a move to Bayern Munich this summer, when he indicated that he wanted to play regularly but would also be content with limited game time at a big club. His arrival at the Etihad would further freshen up the squad, with two forwards already signed and Kalvin Phillips and Marc Cucurella.
However, it is unlikely that either Ortega or Steffen would be happy being the third-choice keeper in the squad. Steffen on the other hand is looking to solidify his spot in the US team for the World Cup at the end of the year, while Ortega has an outside chance of getting a Germany call up after being on the standby for Euro 2020. City are looking to conduct as much business in the transfers market early as they can return to the first team training for pre-season training next month. On the other hand Middlesbrough have agreed a deal to sign Manchester City goalkeeper Zack Steffen on a season-long loan as Boro have been looking for a new goalkeeper this summer and have been talking to Tom Heaton, Karl Darlow and Ben Foster but now have settled on Steffen to become their new no 1 keeper.
Ortega posted a farewell message to Arminia Bielefeld on his Instagram page on Monday evening."Thank you [Arminia Bielefeld]! It's time to say goodbye. I wanted to thank Arminia Bielefeld for an incredible 12 years. It was an indescribable journey in which I developed enormously both as a sport and as a person,"
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