NE Revolution New-Guy Report: More Miguel Gonzalez

By: Jeff | March 5th, 2007

As mentioned in my earlier profile of Miguel Gonzalez, I’d started “reaching out and touching” people who may know more about the Gonzalez as a player. While my first entry reads somewhat underwhelmed (which is unfortunate), the quick email exchange I had with Coach Tom Durkin, who coached Gonzalez when he played for the Bradenton Academics, shows that people close to the game are pretty high on Gonzalez.

For reasons of reading continuity, I’m not going to post this as a regular Q & A, but will post the questions I asked first and follow that with Coach Durkin’s nicely comfortable, somewhat stream-of-consciousness reply.

The questions:
1) Where did Miguel play during his time with Bradenton? On a related point, what foot does he favor?
2) What assets did he bring to that position, either physical or mental? What are his chief strengths as a player?
3) What part of Miguel’s game needs the most improvement as he begins his professional career? Does this make him a likelier candidate for another role in the professional ranks?
4) Would you describe Miguel as a “leader” either by example or as a voice in the locker room? If not, what constitutes his best behavioral attribute as a player?

The Reply:
Miguel came to us as a 16 year old and attended our soccer academy for two years. Miguel was the outstanding player of his age group and it was only natural that we bring up to our PDL team over the summer.

As he is a natural talent and a left footed player to boot it was logical for him to forego College soccer and embark on a professional career.

Miguel played wide left in a 3-5-2 formation. He was given free reign in midfield and scored many spectacular goal for the IMG and the Academics.

Miguel is extremely competitive and plays every moment to win. For a skillful player he is not afraid to get dirty and he gets under opponents skin.

Miguel needs to continue to develop physically to succeed at the professional level. He will excel eventually at any number of positions.

Miguel is leader on the field. He gives good examples of courage and conviction.

Here’s what I get out of this: his playing upside sounds better than I had at first suspected (that’s good), though it sounds like he could use to bulk up a bit (at 5′8″ and a buck-forty-five for weight? yeah, couldn’t hurt). The reported “grit” is nice to see as well and it certainly can’t hurt to have another left-footed player on the roster, especially one familiar with a wide position.

I’m actually getting a bit excited to see these guys take the field. Getting into this project seems like a better idea than I’d originally suspected. Now…if I can only get a response out of the Revs’ front office, I’d be on to bigger, better things still.