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

6 years of residency before citizenship eligibility, so summer 2021 at the earliest, though I expect his loan move affects that timeline.

 

Ah, last time I read about it I thought I read 5... no clue how the loan affects his residency requirements, but it's not like Benfica is above bribing the government to get what they want lol

 

It's 5 years of residency to be eligible for permanent residency, 6 for citizenship (but only 3 if married to a Portuguese citizen).

 

Keaton started tonight. We’re 9 minutes in. He’s playing an 8. Or something.

 

Since losing Quioto to a red early Dynamo has bunkered. Parks is playing further back than usual for whatever reason. Looking like a typical 11 vs. 10 MLS game, with the winner (they're 1-1 at 72') likely coming in the very last minutes.

Parks has been ok, nothing to write home about.

PS: And Manotas scores in a counter, NYCFC 1-2 Dynamo. Parks lucky to not have a yellow, he keeps putting his hands on the shoulders of the other guy when he jumps. The ref has already had a word with him.

Castellanos evens it 2-2. Parks assist while the Dynamo players were complaining about a foul (that should have been whistled, tbh).

 

Picks out a beautiful cross to assist Castellanos on the equalizer

 

He had all the time in the world because the Dynamo players had stopped to ask for a foul by Moralez, who had gone for the leg of Cabezas(?) in the previous move.

 

Probably won't record an assist, but just set up the potential winner.

 

Dynamo played a solid second half, actually, considering they were down a man. Parks is his silky-passing self, and has good bad control, which is much more obvious in MLS than it was in Portugal, because so many of the guys on the field need a yard to control a pass.

Otherwise, the intellectual part of the game is where he lacks. When you have three possible passes, you want to send it to the guy in the best position to attack, not the one that is the easiest for you to find.

The signal cuts off now, and when it's back, NYCFC has scored. This one seems to have been a proper head flick by Parks from Matarrita to Castellanos, ball is saved but Castellanos scores in the rebound.

 

This is the first time I've ever seen this opinion voiced about him... sometimes you'll see people describe his game as 'simple', but more often than not that's used in a positive sense.

WhoScored has shows him putting 78 of his 108 completed passes forward in today's game, which is 2nd only to Ring. He also led the team with 4 key passes.

OPTA isn't crediting him with an assist on the 3rd goal, but he effectively had 2 assists on the night. Obviously you can't take a ton away from a game where they were a man up for the majority of the 90', but still, hard to watch that match and come away with "Keaton doesn't play offensively enough".

 

I suspect it's the reason he never got the promotion to the First Division in Portugal. It's one of those things you won't see in statistics, won't be part of the computer scores, and is often ignored by less sophisticated analysts.

"Simple" is good, in that it keeps the flow of the game, but in several occasions, not just today, Keaton goes for the simple (as in easy) pass, instead of the more difficult but much smarter one. That's also a reason why his pass stats are so good: if you don't take risks, well, your percent goes up.

Let's not forget that a very useless Bradley still kept very high numbers in the successful passing % category. And Keaton has his share of passing back when he feels the slight doubt about pushing forward.

 

I suspect that it's because Benfica's midfield is absolutely stacked... his midfield partners for 2 years on Benfica B were Florentino, one of the most promising central midfielders in all of central Europe, and Gedson Fernandes, who earned his first senior cap for Portugal at 19.

But I also think you're missing the context of the manager he's playing under: NYCFC is leading the league in possession. Playing simple to maintain possession is the game plan Domme has put together. The fact that Keaton is also providing 4 key passes in a game where he's instructed to play simple as the central midfield shuttler shows that he has vision in addition to simplistic, tempo-setting play.

 

I think that’s a bad take. He does play simple but he will push it when it’s there. He doesn’t force it, but I think his feel for the tempo and acumen on when to take the chance are excellent.

 

Unfortunately he is playing half of the games at futsal court and not much can be learned from those games.

 

Solid point about Torrent. I've always been high on Parks, mainly for the accuracy of his passing. We could use a guy like that.

 

Marry him to Nelly Furtado, ASAP!!

 

While I agree that passing direction can be ignored at times, though that's changing with the excellent new passing sonars. (Tweet included for example, can't find a Keaton pass sonar)

Passing sonars for a few Liverpool midfielders. Reaffirms what a number of people believe. pic.twitter.com/kp3kHUqVK0

— Sam McGuire (@SamMcGuire90) November 26, 2018

That said, Keaton has shown an ability to be a chameleon in the midfield, doing what his coach asks him to do. In terms of offensive ability in the 2017-2018 season he led Benfica B in assists and was 2nd in goals, better than Gedson, Florentino Luis, and the 126 million dollar man Joao Felix.

In Fall 2018 as Benfica were trying to integrate Florentino and Gedson into the first team he dropped much deeper and was more responsible for connecting the defense to the forwards and attacking mids, much less involved in the attack. There was a lot of consternation as his goals and assists plummeted but his numbers were similar to Florentino's in the same position.

To label him as a back pass merchant is pretty inaccurate.

 

So he can play for Canada?

 

From your suspicions to your lips, nothing more.

What's "smart" about turning the ball over? Your team can't score goals when the opponent has the ball.

You'd prefer a clean-up hitter with a .200 batting average with 40 home runs to the same player hitting .300 with 100 rbis and 100 runs scored?

 

i think baseball has changed dramatically so maybe not the best comparison. home runs uber alles

 

It wasn’t his best game ever. But they let him go forward toward the end, and he created two goals.

No Sands at the back always causes problems building from deep.

I’m starting to think Ring plays ahead of Sands in that scenario because Dome trusts Keaton to be the better passer.

Also worth noting that Maxi wasn’t playing until late in the game, so everything was clunky.

I like Keaton. He’d do as well as a 6 as anything 3G has put out there.

 

Fair enough, my baseball bona fides ended with the 20th century.

 

Parks got the start vs NYRB. He played his usual self, went the distance. I thought he could have done so much more. He had a chance to score from 10 yards out with a header and ended up pushing it wide. He has to make those if he wants to move to the next level. NYCFC won 2-1.

 

Maxi is tiny and compensates for it being cerebral. Not just Parks could learn from him.