Posts Tagged ‘Alvaro Fernandez’

Yesterday I had the great pleasure of seeing La Liga game-match between Valencia & Valladolid, two playmakers were in full display, although Valencia’s Ever Banega truly has no equal, and deserves to be on the NT setting up Diego Milito & Messi, I was also somewhat impressed with Valladolid’s resident Uruguayan enganche, Nestor Canobbio, who should have been given a courtesy call-up by Tabarez on the NT sometime in the last year or so. But then at the end of the game’s conclusion, as the announcers threw in their two cents and muttered out-loud that Banega should be playing on the Argentinean NT, as this very astute argument was laid out almost as an afterthought, it was then that I thought that the chances for Banega or Canobbio even playing on their respective National Teams is really an argument that is null and void. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s that time again… time to play mad scientist and draw crazy formations using our beloved Celeste. This time though I’m using 3 formations that are ultra-defensive with an eye on the 2010 World Cup. So I’m going with a 5-4-1 formation, a 3-3-1-3 formation and finally a 4-6-0 formation. Sure these are bizarre formations that will never see the light of day, but they should be pondered nonetheless. Read the rest of this entry »

So much for astroturf/synthetic grass being a field advantage… I don’t know how in hell FIFA can justify 3 WC berths for the CONCACAF and allow anybody to play in the Saprissa Stadium? The game was like a ping pong match, bad bounces that confused the Costa Ricans and had the Costa Ricans playing a “pelotazo” match which they could not afford to get into with Uruguay, after Lugano scored with the most awkward looking goal I’ve seen in a while, the match entered into the ridiculous phase, Uruguay at times looked more comfortable on the fake stuff than the Costa Ricans did. Read the rest of this entry »

It seems like only yesterday that Uruguay qualified to a World Cup, it seems like only yesterday that Uruguay failed to qualify to a World Cup and what’s going on now will either reverse what occurred in 2001 or improve on it. After two consecutive World Cup misses in the 1990′s, Uruguay’s qualification to the 2002 World Cup was to be the start of a new era in Uruguayan fútbol, unfortunately its looking more and more like it was just a quick fix and nothing more. Read the rest of this entry »

The idea of El Nacho coming back to La Celeste and sort of plugging the glaring “midfield” hole Uruguay has experienced as of late is all but over; the continuity of El Nacho Gonzalez has been aborted by Club Valencia’s Unai Emery. For Uruguay this complicates matters, because it means that the Jorge Martinez experiment continues… so far the dividends have not been great (blow-out loss to Brazil & friendly loss to Algeria) with Martinez as the right wing “enganche.”

I have never been a great admirer of Ignacio Gonzalez but with that said, I do recognize that in some small way he does shore-up midfield deficiencies for Uruguay… now Uruguay will have to do with Martinez and Forlan drifting back as usual to make the “extra” pass. Tabarez may still be rebellious enough to cap Gonzalez regardless of his playing shape but even Tabarez would be hard pressed to explain to the media why Gonzalez “should be” capped. I’m betting even the “Father Flanagan” of Uruguayan coaches will not cap Gonzalez. Read the rest of this entry »

On August 5th, Manchester United plays Club Valencia in a pre-season friendly — While Manchester United imagines life without CR7 & Carlos Tevez, Club Valencia continues “feeling out” the Nacho Gonzalez experiment. Wayne Rooney going solo? I guess a Champions League final is not on their agenda. Read the rest of this entry »