Klinsi v. Nagbe
A nice, very Will-Parchman-esque
post went up yesterday asking whether the Portland Timbers Darlington Nagbe sabotaged his chances of playing for the U.S. Men’s National Team for so long
as Jurgen Klinsmann may reign thereover by refusing an invite to the friendlies
against Cuba and New Zealand. First, confession time: I totally missed this
whole chain of events; honest, I thought Nagbe was not only in camp, but also
on the roster; turns out he wasn’t and, factually, I still don’t care. Second,
I think Nagbe made the right decision, because 1) bullshit friendlies; 2) he
would have played chump minutes, assuming he played any minutes at all; 3)
Nagbe’s club very much needed him more, trust me on this.
Parchman’s piece dwelt on the
lose-lose nature of this dynamic – i.e., Nagbe screwed himself due to
Klinsmann’s essentially vengeful (petty? let’s go with petty) nature, while
Klinsmann hurt the National Team by losing a player of Nagbe’s…particular set
of skills – but there was one phrase in the whole mess that, me being me, I
zeroed in on:
“…it’s fair to say Klinsmann was still attempting to figure out where Nagbe fit in his ever-shifting tactical construct.”
Isn’t this universal, really? Or,
to phrase this as an actual question, have the Timbers figured out where Nagbe
fits, really?
In spite of playing one of his
better attacking games of the season last weekend, this space has argued, and probably
will always argue, that Nagbe isn’t a winger. There are multiple reasons for
this (e.g. disposition, proclivity, where Nagbe makes the most difference,
etc.), but, yes, I believe Nagbe’s best in the middle and I’m good sticking to
that argument. Dissuade me if you wanna.
