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Leo Percovich didn’t need to be asked twice to fly to England and link up with Aitor Karanka at Boro.

The goalkeeping coach was working in the United States for Chicago Fire when he received the invitation to work with the highly-rated Spaniard.

The moment he put the phone down, Percovich booked the next available flight to the UK, threw some clothes in a case and headed for the airport.

Ironically, though, before the subject of Boro came up during his phone call with Karanka, Percovich had been sounding out his friend about the possibility of returning to America as a coach.

“Two or three people asked me to ask him to come here as a coach, so I called him,” he explained.

“He said ‘let me change the question, won’t you come here with me?’. I said where and he told me Middlesbrough.

“He said ‘can you be here tomorrow?’ And I said ‘yes’, and I took the first flight just two hours later.

“I was there on the Saturday and he was surprised, he said: ‘you arrived before me’!”

(Image: Graham Bell (Middlesbrough FC))

Percovich admits it was tough decision to quit his post in America, uproot his family and move from one side of the Atlantic to the other.

But the appeal of working with Karanka at Middlesbrough was too good an opportunity to turn down.

“It was a very big decision, I had been in America for nine years.

“But Aitor’s a true person, a true man and a true professional.

“The project at Middlesbrough was amazing,” he added. “When he told me about the chairman, and the club and the people who run the club, it sounded like a dream, a good place to grow a career.”

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