"Everyone is going to see" - Middlesbrough FC: Terminated contract proves Aitor Karanka was wrong | OneFootball

FLW takes a look back at the Boro career of Carlos de Pena, and why Aitor Karanka was proven wrong in his vow for success from the Uruguayan.

Aitor Karanka brought Uruguayan winger Carlos de Pena to Middlesbrough in 2015, and made no secret of his confidence that he would turn out to be a roaring success at the Riverside Stadium.

Signed from Nacional in a deal understood to have been worth £2.6m, Boro beat the summer transfer deadline in 2015 to put an end to what was a rather eventful on-off transfer saga by capturing the signature of the highly-rated midfielder.

De Pena was involved in a car accident - in which he was unharmed - on his way back from Montevideo airport after being told his move to Teesside was off by Nacional's chiefs, who made multiple desperate attempts to keep him at the club.

Eventually - thanks to a stop off in Brazil to complete a medical at Boro icon Juninho's club, Ituano - the young winger completed his Middlesbrough move, but in hindsight, it was a transfer that perhaps both sides wish never happened.

Football League World takes a look back at De Pena's time in the North East, why he failed to live up to Karanka's public expectations, and how he became a major Boro flop.

Karanka promises De Pena will be "very good signing"

It's not uncommon for a manager to come out and talk up their latest recruit, but especially with young players and even more so those who have yet to experience English football, patience is typically stressed.

However, Karanka didn't appear to feel that way. Rather, he made it very clear that he didn't think De Pena would be a good signing for Boro, he knew he would be.

Speaking to the club website via Sky Sports News after De Pena's signing was confirmed, Karanka proclaimed: "Carlos will be a very good signing for us.

"Everyone is going to see that he is a very good player. One of the biggest things is how much he wanted to join us. He told me from the first minute that he couldn't wait to start working with us and that is the main thing.

"He is a young player who I think will settle in here really well. He is a winner, he is experienced - he's played in the Copa Libertadores - and I am really pleased because he will be a good signing for us."

De Pena had emerged from Nacional's youth ranks in the 2012/13 season, before making his senior debut in February 2013. Prior to his move to Middlesbrough, the Uruguayan made 53 appearances for Nacional, scoring 10 times.

As such, he'd flashed his potential on numerous occasions, and ultimately had Boro, and in particular Karanka, believing they'd bagged one of South America's brightest young talents.

However, De Pena's stay at the Riverside was short, and definitely wasn't sweet, as Karanka's confidence of success proved to be misplaced.

The winger made just 10 first-team appearances for Middlesbrough during his time with the club, with all of them coming in the 2015/16 season, with his one assist coming in a 3-0 League Cup win over Wolves.

Boro won promotion to the Premier League that season, but De Pena made just six appearances in the league, with the other four coming in cup competitions.

Displacing Stewart Downing from Karanka's side proved too big of a task, and after being pushed further to the fringes in the first half of the 2016/17 season as further signings made and the club now plying their trade at an even higher level, De Pena sealed a short-term loan move to Real Oviedo in January 2017.

After returning from that spell in the Spanish second tier, and with Boro now back in the Championship, De Pena was relegated to academy football at the club.

Not wishing to spend any more time of his career than he had to in the youth ranks of English football, both Middlesbrough and De Pena agreed to a mutual termination of his contract in July 2017.

Given the fact he still had one year remaining on his Boro deal at that point, taking this course of action was a rather damming portrayal of his time in the North East.

When asked via Teesside Live in January 2017 about why De Pena's Middlesbrough move hadn't worked out, Karanka admitted: "I couldn't bring his best. He's a really good player and he's a really good kid."

In the years following his Middlesbrough exit, De Pena has gone on to enjoy success with Dynamo Kyiv - where he played and scored in numerous Champions League games - and most recently Brazilian sides Internacional and Bahia respectively.

It simply didn't work out for him at Boro. Karanka was bold in his prediction that "everyone is going to see" what a good player De Pena was but a mutually terminated contract on Teesside shows that faith was misguided.