Marco Rojas won't play in the Bundesliga this season but that doesn't mean his time is up at VFB Stuttgart.
The All White was sent out on loan to German second division club SpVgg Greuther Frth this week, as the European summer transfer window comes to a close.
Sometimes a loan deal can be the beginning of the end for a player farmed out and then not seen again. That may not be the case with Rojas.
Early this week, before a deal had been done, Stuttgart manager Armin Veh said he was pleased with the progress of Rojas but hinted a loan deal was in the offing.
"Rojas has done very well," Veh told a local press conference. "[However] to get a spot among the starting 11 is pretty hard at the moment. During pre-season, he has done well, [he] did score quite a few goals. What he needs is game time. It would be good for him to get game time for a whole year."
Rojas had seemed set to make a impact this season. After signing from Melbourne Victory in a blaze of hype, he had a disappointing start to his Stuttgart career.
"He was introduced as the 'Kiwi Messi' but turned out to be more Kiwi than Messi," opined the Stuttgarter-Nachrichten newspaper last month, though his difficulties were mainly due to the metatarsal injury he suffered during an early training session at the club.
Rojas was back to full fitness for this campaign and scored four goals in four pre-season matches for the club.
He was featured in major German tabloid daily Bild and was named on Sportschau, the German version of Match of the Day, as one of the pre-season standouts.
But once Stuttgart signed Serbian Filip Kostic, adding to an already congested roster of attacking players, Rojas was always likely to struggle for game time.
Veh also needs to make an instant impact. He won the Bundesliga with Stuttgart in 2007 and has been brought back after their disappointing 2013-14 campaign, when they won just eight of 34 games and finished 15th, one place outside the relegation zone.
"Rojas did quite well during pre-season but [was] far away from turning into a key player for Stuttgart," said local journalist Max Haupt, "especially with Stuttgart having a lot of offensive players in midfield. But I don't see a reason why Stuttgart won't give him time [to develop] since he has not had a chance yet because of his injury. Other loan deals have paid off in the past in this way for Stuttgart."
Greuther Frth looks a good place to develop.
The Cloverleaves were just 30 minutes away from being promoted to the Bundesliga last season, losing their promotion playoff to Hamburg on away goals after drawing the first leg in Hamburg 0-0.
Their squad features professionals from Holland, Brazil, Serbia, Ghana, Austria and Poland, as well as numerous Germans, so Rojas will need to impress to get his much-needed game time.
The main concern remains over the ability of the 1.68m Rojas to handle the physicality of the game in Germany.
The slightly-built livewire has learned to look after himself and is deceptively strong but still lacks the physical presence of many diminutive footballers.
"It's up to him now. He's got a chance to play well and go back," said former All White Wynton Rufer.
Aside from his many years with Werder Bremen, Rufer also spent a few months in the second tier with Kaiserslautern, scoring four goals in 14 games as they achieved promotion in the 1996-97 season.
"But it won't be easy," said Rufer. "The second division in Germany is full of battlers and eight-foot giants and the talented, skilful players can struggle.
"I was a seasoned professional and 34-years-old when I went there but it still wasn't easy. However, it is an opportunity and I don't think it will be all bad for Marco."