CD Acero signs Nigerian forward Anthony Lokosa after the transfer window closed
CD Acero, the Sagunto football club, has signed free agent Anthony Lokosa, a 29-year-old Nigerian forward who arrives from Malta's Tarxien Rainbows to strengthen the attack in Tercera Federación (Spain's fifth tier).
With the transfer window already shut, CD Acero has found another way to strengthen the squad: signing a player who is currently without a club. The choice is Nigerian forward Anthony Lokosa, 29, who joins as a free agent from Malta's Tarxien Rainbows and becomes part of a red-and-white squad competing this season in Group VI of the Tercera Federación (Spain's fifth tier).
The new signing also lands in the same group — Group VI of the Tercera Federación — where Atlético Saguntino, the city's other big club, competes, so it is not out of the question that Lokosa could face the city's eternal rival this very season in a Sagunto derby.
The Tercera Federación, the fifth tier of Spanish football, is split into eighteen regional or inter-provincial groups, and Group VI brings together clubs from the Valencian Community. It is a semi-professional level, where most players combine football with a job or their studies, and where academy sides from historic clubs share the division each season with modest clubs from mid-sized cities like Sagunto. Acero and Atlético Saguntino landing in the same group this season has not been the norm in recent years, as the two clubs have often played in different tiers of Valencian non-professional football, so the coincidence gives the city the chance of a local derby in the category, calendar permitting.
The new striker stands 1.85 metres tall and is built to lead the attack, though he has also played on the wing at points in his career. Behind him is an unusual journey for a player now joining Sagunto football: spells in the leagues of Spain, Egypt, Israel, Serbia and Malta before signing for Acero.
He had already made his mark in Spain. Almería B brought him in on loan from Egyptian club Pharco FC in 2021, with a buy option the Andalusian club later exercised. Over two seasons there he scored ten goals in 53 league matches, always in the same division — Tercera Federación — that he now returns to with Acero.
The transfer window in Spanish non-professional football usually closes in late August or the first days of September, shortly after the league season begins. From that point, federation rules only allow signing players who are without a contract, either because their previous club terminated it or because they never signed with any club before the window shut. It is precisely that exceptional route that has allowed Acero to add Lokosa several weeks after the rest of the red-and-white squad was already finalised.
The Tercera Federación league season runs from September to May or June, with a promotion play-off at the end pitting the top finishers from each group against each other in a knockout format, so late additions like Lokosa can matter both at the start of the campaign and in its decisive closing stretch. In this context, it is not unusual for clubs at this level to turn to the free-agent market to sign players with experience in foreign leagues who, for various reasons, have been left without a club after their own national transfer windows closed — a route that requires less financial outlay than a conventional signing but forces coaches to judge the match fitness of players who have sometimes gone weeks without competing.
His next stop was Serbia, where he played for Železničar Pančevo and Smederevo, before crossing the Mediterranean to Malta. Wearing the Tarxien Rainbows shirt, he racked up 19 appearances last season, with two goals and two assists, according to the Maltese club's recent record.
For a team that started the season with the squad essentially set, adding a forward with Lokosa's international experience in the middle of September is more than a simple numerical replacement: it gives the coach a different option up front, with a physical profile the red-and-white attack lacked until now, and it deepens the squad for the stretches of the season when injuries or suspensions tend to squeeze the fixture list.
For a club whose very name recalls Sagunto's steelmaking past (acero means "steel" in Spanish), adding a forward with international experience and a proven track record at this level is more than a last-minute patch-up: it is a bet on arriving stronger for a stretch of the season in which every goal could make the difference in Group VI.
According to Golsmedia.