Parks and recreation in Lisbon: Keaton at NYCFC (on loan from Benfica)

#SLBenficaB | 🔄 Sai Nuno Santos entra Keaton Park.

— SL Benfica (@SLBenfica) August 8, 2017

Sorry I think I copied the wrong tweet.

Makes his league debut.

 

Fantastic News. Anyone know how he did?

 

Saw a couple of comments that were pretty general. Basically translated to didn't look out of place. Which for a debut to a better team, even if it's the same league, is good.

 

Warming up, stream on firstrow sports

 

Coming on now

 

Well that sucked. Parks gets kicked trying to clear a corner. He's on the ground when Nacional gets the ball back, makes a nice forward pass and scores. Benfica was not happy that the whistle wasn't blown for Parks being on the ground.

 

Nah that was some other guy that got kicked

 

Was that Pinto? He's not having a very good game.

 

The assist on a nice run and cross. Striker made no mistake. Really nice play.

 

ASSIST!

 

Definitely a massive prospect for us

 

Thanks for the heads up @bballshawn. Parks got about 25 minutes. Showed for the ball deep, recirculated when nothing was ahead of him but he likes to get forward. Made two good runs. First in the box, good turn trying to get free for a shot but was ultimately blocked and the second down the right wing, got a good ball from the full back and put in a beautiful cross Alan Jr headed down for the tying goal.

He's got nice feet with the ball in tight from what I saw and seems to have the sense for runs off the ball. Wonder how long before he starts because he made a case for himself today. Good things happen when he's on the field.

 

Where was he playing?

 

He was the RCM. Part of a duel #8.

 

I haven't watched that much of him, but from the little I've seen, I think he's one of the more interesting young American players there is. Reminds me some of current Yaya Toure in that he's sort of a big lumbering #8 with a high level of offensive skill. Could probably stick him in at #10 or maybe on the wing, as well. Might need to work on his defensive game, he doesn't strike me as the fastest mover around the field, but he can be taught better positioning and better defensive aggressiveness. Can't teach size and skill like that.

 

In Portugal.

 

I'm unfamiliar with his situation. I see he's playing w/ the second team. Is he close to breaking through to the main team? What's their CM position like?

 

Doesn't include his run, but here is the assist:

896790299321565185 is not a valid tweet id

 

Very good cross. No clue what the keeper was doing.

 

From what I've read, he's still settling in with Benfica B since he's only been cleared to play for them for a few weeks.

 

I don't know much of anything about Benefica other than they won their league last year and are once again in the Champions League and their B team will compete in the Youth Champions League too. They are a traditional buy youth, play youth, sell them on for a huge fee team.

Since Keaton just joined them I expect he'll play for the B team through the season and they'll evaluate if they want to keep him themselves or loan him out to another Segunda side. If you're good enough for the Portuguese first division they'll find a way to get him playing time.

Job number one for him though is seizing a first team place on the B team. He showed he was good enough for this level last season so I expect they'll integrate him and he'll be a regular soon enough.

After that? Who knows. I don't think any of us have seen him play enough to give an accurate assessment. Good thing is you can usually find a stream of them regularly so I'm going to watch as much as I can.

 

You may see his game here. He is number 55 (highlights) this is full game since he got subbed in

 

His game is very simple, doesn't make mistakes. He is not an energy bunny type of a player. ussoccer9731 evaluation is on the money.

 

Well he didn't lose the ball one time. Perfectly calm in possession. Remains poised around the goal. Good touch, pillow feet. He played a ball through the lines that was right on the money.

He's big, he's slow, he doesn't really work to defend or win the ball. He's gotta move closer to goal as time goes, I'd think, his instinct is to make goals and score them. He looks like an easy starter at this level.

 

A very unusual player. Big now, will be huge in a couple years. Despite of his skills will have hard time playing in midfield at upper level. Can he play striker?