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| I can see San Jose from here...parts of Houston. |
In news of the impossible, Patrice Bernier just picked up one more year with L’Impact Montreal.
Elsewhere, MLSSoccer.com’s The Kick Off topped the report of
FC Dallas’ Ryan Hollingshead getting hit by a car with a playful “Ouch!”, and,
surprisingly, FIFA took the “money-whore” option to expand the 2026 World Cup to include 48 teams.
Hmm…maybe MLS is changing world soccer…in bigger news…
Timbers Target A Winger
According to “sources,” the Portland Timbers have formally offered to take Sebastian Blanco off Argentinian club San Lorenzo’s hands. See
usual disclosures (e.g., I don’t follow the Argentine league, therefore know
nothing meaningful about this guy; I did, however, see Back Office Gavin ask
another guy if he’s good for MLS, and the other guy said yes), but one phrase
and some numbers in the article stand out:
“A creative midfielder capable of playing centrally or out wide, he has three goals and five assists in 11 appearances in the current Argentine Primera campaign and nine goals and eight assists in 78 appearances in all competitions in his two years with the club.”
The numbers lack a certain “pop,” so here’s to hoping that
Blanco will get a little bump courtesy of the competitive quality between
Argentina and MLS (does such a thing exist? Looked like it last time I watched
Argentina regularly). I’m less hung up on that than caught between considering/ruing
the possibilities of Blanco sharing the “3-bank” in a 4-2-3-1 with Darlington
Nagbe, and Diego Valeri. The only real concern there comes with fitting all
these guys’ approaches into something coherent; I mean, I see the interrupted phrase
“capable of playing…out wide,” but, with Portland needing width badly as it
does, that’s sort of a big deal. To reframe that, does Blanco prefer playing
out wide, or is there a winger-to-be-named-later floating around out there?
Reserving judgment. For now, I’m happy to see a little (more)
ambition, and will hope the whole thing ends in a "nice problem to have" scenario.
And what about new defenders, guys?
