de la Torre is listed at 5'10" 148lbs. That's within the typical size range one comes across in central midfielders. He's at the lower end of that range but isn't unusually slight.
He just needs to get a little stronger, without putting much weight on. There's a scientific method to doing that. He's got the endurance, quickness, and agility.
Lift hay bales all summer. S\in college I saw a whip thin ranch kid take down a big physical kid in seconds. Learned right then if the grew up on a farm or ranch to not get in a fight with them.
LDLT and Celta Vigo in Oakland... looks like they're training at the Oakland Roots facility. 𝐅𝐢𝐫𝐬𝐭 𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐢𝐧 𝐎𝐚𝐤𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐝! ⚽️🎬 Espectacular la casa de los @oaklandrootssc, empieza nuestro stage en 🇺🇸 Let's go! 🚀#LaLigainUSA @LaLiga#RCCeltaAmericanTour pic.twitter.com/ul2WMQh59h— RC Celta (@RCCelta) July 16, 2022 𝐍𝐮𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐨 𝐩𝐫𝐢𝐦𝐞𝐫 𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐚𝐦𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐨 𝐞𝐧 𝐄𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐝𝐨𝐬 𝐔𝐧𝐢𝐝𝐨𝐬 🇺🇸#LaLigainUSA @LaLiga#RCCeltaAmericanTour pic.twitter.com/mYN921INNK— RC Celta (@RCCelta) July 16, 2022 𝐋𝐮𝐜𝐚 𝐢𝐬 𝐚𝐭 𝐡𝐨𝐦𝐞 🏡🇺🇸⚽️@USMNT #LaLigainUSA @LaLiga #RCCeltaAmericanTour pic.twitter.com/AmOQVPV1pF— RC Celta English (@RCCeltaEN) July 16, 2022 Our home 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐔𝐒𝐀 🇺🇸 👋🏻 @oaklandrootssc #LaLigainUSA @LaLiga #RCCeltaAmericanTour pic.twitter.com/FXbuB6OYRJ— RC Celta (@RCCelta) July 16, 2022
my bad, LDLT on the bench... Ready for the MATCH! 🇺🇸 #LaLigainUSA @LaLigaEN #RCCeltaAmericanTour pic.twitter.com/cOsarhyXzB— RC Celta English (@RCCeltaEN) July 21, 2022
The game was on ESPN+ and you should be able to find the replay there, if you know where to look. LDLT came on in the 74th minute: ¡Así fue el debut de @delatorreluca como celtista!Desde el abrazo del Chacho y el "suerte" de Gudelj 🇺🇸#LaLigainUSA @LaLiga#RCCeltaAmericanTour pic.twitter.com/2q1a9tVyV7— RC Celta (@RCCelta) July 21, 2022 highlights: 𝑰𝒕 𝒘𝒂𝒔 𝑵𝑶𝑻 𝑱𝑼𝑺𝑻 𝒂 𝒎𝒂𝒕𝒄𝒉 🔥📺Don't miss the highlights of the game against @SJEarthquakes at @PayPalPark 👀#LaLigainUSA @LaLigaEN#RCCeltaAmericanTour pic.twitter.com/swmcdYh90j— RC Celta English (@RCCeltaEN) July 21, 2022 Spoiler alert: LDLT didn't stand out all that much and the Quakes 17 year old homegrown Niko Tsakiris was by far the best American midfielder in the game... but hey it's one meaningless friendly. Niko Tsakiris vs Celta Vigo pic.twitter.com/JSJKqUXvCd— Jack Stephen 🇺🇸🇮🇳 (@USMNTZ) July 21, 2022
LDLT drama Official @USMNT account on Instagram posted this an hour ago about #USMNT players who just played in the US with European clubs such as Christian Pulisic, Sergiño Dest, and Matt Turner. Unfortunately, they forgot about Luca De La Torre. And he responded to the post with “👍” pic.twitter.com/slrlN3ult1— Anthony (@AnthonyKyaw) July 22, 2022 Massive “babe, I’m sorry” energy pic.twitter.com/iscyGFRaPx— Alex Lombardi (@alexlombardi_) July 22, 2022
Unless you have fat to lose, which LDLT doesn’t, you will gain weight as you get stronger because adding strength adds muscle tissue. It’s fine. He’s not a marathon runner.
No, that's a prove that our U-20 (where Niko was mostly coming from the bench) would easily destroy your average mid table La Liga team.
I, actually, was surprised how well he looked against Celta Vigo. And, no, I don't think that U-20 would beat them.
I think there's a non-zero chance LDLT gets "Hoppe'd" in Spain. Fingers crossed. Niko Tsakiris has a shot to be pretty darn good. I need to see more to gauge his ceiling, but he's zoomed up a lot of the "prospect rankings." For those that don't know, he's the son of former USYNT coach Shaun Tsakiris.
LDLT didn't look great out there, but I expected that. He came in after a lot of subs, and was basically just kind of running around for 15 minutes. There was one time when he was running with a player and his rb tried to make a pass to him but he had drifted inside. Otherwise, it was a typical first outing. TLDR, he is new and looked new. The thing with Luca is the more familiar he is with the players he plays with, the better he will look. He is always going to open space and try to be an outlet, but you have to know which players like which runs for that work. So as he learns more about his teammates that will become more apparent. So it's good he got an earlyish transfer to gain that. I'd expect him to either sink or swim this season by about mid-August. Well either see good minutes or a player they bought for numbers and a potential breakout later on, with the plus of gaining an American audience. We'll see but he has to get better.
He'll have some fat to lose, probably not much, and he doesn't need to bulk, just get stronger, so the muscle gains won't be excessive. He needs heavier weight and low reps. Ten pounds gain should be the limit.
You’re on fire recently. I watched half two and I was real impressed with Tsakiras. Funny how both McGlynn and Tsakiris looked better against adults. I can’t wait to see which kid from that U20 just takes a giant leap forward and blows us away. Odds are high it will happen from that group, and from a player we probably didn’t expect. BTW Cowell, better to not say anything. Luca got his cameo. Luca will get his shot. Again, IMO, it is going to be a process. No biggie. I do agree however, by the transitive BS thought process it’s clear our U20’s would wipe the floor with Celta. It’s obvious.
My point is you don’t get stronger without adding muscle which adds weight once muscle gain exceeds fat loss, which for a professional soccer player is almost immediately. While weight will affect your VO2 max, I’m not sure you want to prioritise aerobic capacity over strength. So, yeah, there’s an upper limit to useful strength gain for a soccer player, but I think LDLT has a long way to go to reach it.
He might be fine. Let's hope so. One thing that's different about Celta Vigo, compared to some other La Liga squads, is that they don't have an enormous number of players. Relatively small first team. Based on their current squad, de la torre is going to have to see minutes. They've had a bunch of financial problems over the last several years, exacerbated greatly by COVID. This might be a relegation battle team. As of today, they have 19 players. Santi Mina is facing a 4 year prison sentence, so that's almost certainly down to 18. [They've inexplicably found a team in Greece to transfer Mina to IN CASE he gets off somehow.] They have a lot of work to do. I mean, they're on a preseason tour and only had 6 players on the bench for that game against the Quakes. That ain't good. I'm more worried about Celta Vigo being a disaster than de la Torre not getting playing time this season.
Yes, of course, there will always be some muscle gain with strength gain, but it doesn't have to be excessive. He needs to get stronger, not bulk up. The issue is that you don't want to gain a lot of weight, because you have to move that weight around for 90 minutes. So there is an energy issue to deal with if you get heavy. He can add <= 10 lbs and still gain considerable strength. The end.
We reached a point when significant percentage of the top prospects come from soccer families. What's very good as those families don't make stupid career decisions.
Most of the time they do. Sometimes they don't. Bryan Reynolds' father is a former USYNTer (Tim Howard's roommate with the US U17s), star in the NCAAs at SMU, and then played professionally for a brief period. Now he serves as Bryan's agent, and orchestrated the move to Roma. Keith Reynolds, Bryan's father, was a Roma fan as a kid. Hmmm............... [By the way, we've been asking the trivia question: Both Tyler Wolff and Niko Tsakiris have a chance to make the U20 World Cup roster. Their fathers both made U20 World Cup squads. Name other father/son combos that made US U20 World Cup squads. The aforementioned Reynolds' both played for the U17s, but not the U20s.]