Celta Vigo have completed the loan signing of Lokomotiv Moscow forward Fedor Smolov until the end of the season.
The Galician club confirmed the news on Thursday with the striker identified as the ideal player to bolster their attacking ranks and partner Iago Aspas.
The 29-year-old is said to have been on Celta’s radar for the past three years, when he was identified as a threat when at Krasnodar – their Europa League opponents in the Round of 16 in 2016/17.
Smolov has scored 14 goals in 39 caps for the Russian national team and has spent almost the entirety of his professional career in his home country, aside from a brief loan spell at Feyenoord in 2010.
He was most prolific at Krasnodar, where he scored 64 goals in 101 appearances between 2015 and 2018, before joining his current club Lokomotiv – for whom he has scored just seven times in 28 outings.
Smolov netted twice for Russia in a friendly against Spain in 2017 – a draw which ended 3-3.
