Return of the Prodigal Son
By Ed Welsh at February 7, 2012 | 11:30 am | Print
We’ve all heard the story. One day, the prodigal son left his home (the Union) to go and seek fame and riches in the big city (Trinidad & Tobago ‘s national team). We, his family back home, didn’t know where he was or what he was doing, but we caught news of him every once in a while. But now the Prodigal Son has returned.
For those of you who aren’t on the twitter, Keon “Predator” Daniel is back. At 4:04 PM on Monday, the Union tweeted that Keon and Danny Mwanga had joined the team in Orlando for the second leg of preseason training. By now, anyone who has read one of my articles should know that I’m Keon Daniel’s biggest fan. But that’s only one reason I got overly excited when I learned that Keon was back. Let’s take a look at why we should care that the Predator has returned to active duty.
Keon provides a lot of things at midfield. First of these things is an ability to play out wide. If you took a look at last year’s midfield, it consisted of three or four central midfielders who were forced to play wide. Because of this, they often gravitated toward the center of the pitch and were too clustered. Daniel naturally plays out on the wing, and it shows. He likes to take the ball up the side and cross, but he’s also able to step back and possess when necessary.
Second thing that’s great about Keon is his experience. As mentioned at the beginning of the post, Keon has international experience with T&T. On a team that is VERY young like the Union are, it is important to have a level of comfort and experience on the ball. You can see when Keon gets the ball he slows the game down and is calm with possession. That quality is something that will prove important to have when the Union find themselves down at some point in the season.
Third quality is height. This is more of an issue of last year, but it still can’t hurt to have a big guy on the squad. The tallest guy out on the pitch last season was probably Mondragon, and he was never much help on set pieces. With the exceptions of Freddy Adu and Roger Torres, we now have a reasonably sized team to field. With this height comes goals. I mentioned Keon’s ability to play out wide and cross, and this is where it is useful to us. With guys like Martinez and Mwanga up top to receive the crosses, the Union could suddenly get good on crosses and set pieces.
The last reason that I’m really excited about Keon coming back is the customized jersey I bought last fall. The U had a sale on customized jerseys so I went and got the one that’s featured at the bottom of this post, because I’m just that crazy.
That’s all I have on the Predator for now. If any of you want to chat (or tell me I’m a total loser for writing this much about one player) hit me up on Twitter. Remember to subscribe to keep up with our very latest and go like us on Facebook. Keep DOOPing, my friends.
