Floro: Osorio was a victim of the numbers game, Bekker “a very good player”

7 Comments

1. 

   Rango

   November 4, 2015 at 5:17 pm

   Bekker definitely can keep the possesion rolling with one or two touch passing and when he is on he has good dead ball skills (except for the ES Gold Cup match). Lacks high level quickness and doesn’t have a big effort engine room to make up for it. Floro must be getting kickbacks from Sigma or someone else to keep selecting him.

2. 

   Kent

   September 1, 2015 at 6:23 pm

   In my opinion, Osorio is only better than Bekker at tackling, defensive positioning, hustle, speed, dribbling, shaking defenders off him, goal scoring, passing, creativity/setting up goals, and overall game smarts. Bekker is better than Osorio at everything else.

3. 

   cwell

   September 1, 2015 at 2:43 pm

   In that case, I doubt that Floro believes in analytics. For example, Bekker was responsible for corner kicks and free kicks in the Houston GC game. As if I recall correctly, each and every one was poor. I saw him make one tracking run in our half; the rest of the time he left it to someone else. Tackles won? I’d like to see his numbers.

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  Sport Shaman

  September 1, 2015 at 4:09 pm

  Bekker didn’t actually see the field in Houston or Toronto during the Gold Cup. I believe you are referring to his play at the Stubhub Center vs El Salvador. Nonetheless, your analysis lines up pretty much with my own and I was there in person for those games.

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  cwell

  September 1, 2015 at 4:50 pm

  You’re right; it was the game in LA. I was very disappointed with his play then, as I increasingly became when he was with TFC. At first I thought it was his somewhat hang-dog look on the field; but then I noticed how easily he was dispossessed of the ball, and how he would fail to track opponents in our half of the field. Heading? – forget it. Only occasionally would he make a telling pass. He had to improve, I kept telling myself, and, after all, his coaches must rate him – their jobs depend on it. But Bekker never did improve, and his game at the Stubhub Ctr. should have been his last game with the national team. Now, what does Floro know that we don’t know? We may never know, because I can’t see him taking the field on Friday night.

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  Steven

  September 2, 2015 at 10:48 am

  Bekker is not a great player, don’t get me wrong, but what he does do is play the way the Floro likes and used to. Bekker plays a lot more european style than North American. What I mean is that he plays with reduced touches. Watch him play and count his touches on the ball. Rarely is it ever more than 2. From what I see in him, thats probably what Floro likes. It frustrates me to no end how many touches players take in MLS. Even Bradley frustrates me with his touches. If we had players he could play two touch football we’d see a huge improvement.

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  cwell

  September 2, 2015 at 4:24 pm

  Well, that’s different slant on it, for sure. I don’t know if stats are available for our first game in this year’s Gold Cup, but it would be interesting to know how many passes Bekker attempted and completed, whatever the number of touches. Of course, if few are completed, one could argue that has to do with whether team-mates made themselves available. I doubt if Bekker will play in the Belize games, but if he does, I’ll be watching for how fast he plays the ball.