Official: Philadelphia Union Sign Former Eintracht Frankfurt Goalkeeper Oka Nikolov

The Philadelphia Union have signed Oka Nikolov, per a press release on the team website. The deal will become fully official once Nikolov's international transfer certificate is received, his P-1 Visa is accepted and he passes a medical assessment.

Here's what we at the Brotherly Game had to say about Nikolov yesterday:

The 39-year-old asked Frankfurt to opt out of his contract, which was recently extended to 2014 in order to pursue his goal of playing in the United States.

He had been replaced by Kevin Trapp as Eintracht's starter in net this past year.

In a statement on the official Bundesliga website, Nikolov had this to say:

"Eintracht are my one and only...However, throughout my career an opportunity to move to America and expand my horizons was always a dream of mine and one which I hope to fulfill now."

Nikolov played 19 years for the club, and appeared in 379 contests. He also had five caps for the Macedonian national team from 1998-2001.

The Union's pursuit of help at the goalkeeper position has been well documented lately. Earlier this month, a source told Brotherly Game that the team was close to acquiring Toronto FC keeper Stefan Frei (as well as Danny Califf) in a three team trade that would have also sent Bakary Soumare to Chicago. Philadelphia would chose to kill off that deal.