Ale Moreno: MLS' Most Fouled Player (So Far)

Funny, I was just thinking of starting a thread on this. My question to all of the knowlegeable Quakes fans out there is WHY?

I mean, no offense to Alejandro, but he's not the fastest guy in the world, he's not that big, and he doesn't have amazing dribbling skills. So you have to wonder why he gets fouled so much.....

And Alejandro has played significantly fewer minutes than a lot of other players (1200 or so, compared to about 1500 for many of the forwards in the league).

Mullan, I can understand why he gets fouled, he's got speed and he regularly tries to take guys on and dribble around them, so they often foul him just to stop him.

But Ale, it's just not that obvious.

My best explanation is that Alejandro tries to play very physical, he's not afraid of mixing it up with the defense. If you compare him to Cerritos, Ronald tends to drop back on long balls, and try to get the rebounds off the defense or off another Quake. Alejandro gets right in there and mixes it up, and defenders seem to always be grabbing and holding him when the ball is passed to him. (Actually, you could argue that if he was protected as much as Adu or other big name players, he'd have drawn many more fouls).

But, I'm curious what all of you think....why is Moreno fouled so much?

By the way, my other theory is that he's really quite fast, but he doesn't show it in the games because he's always injured because the defense is hacking him

 

Moreno "initiates" much of the defender contact. It's just the way he's comfortable playing. In some ways, he reminds me of a slower Diego Serna (without the diving). He does his share of fouling too, that has to piss off defenders who give it back.

 

I think he is big, in the weightlifter sense of the word. He's not tall, but he's got good mass for size and a strong core. You can not move Moreno around with a nudge if he doesn't want to move like you can a Donovan...or like Califf did with Ibrahim of the Metros. When Moreno started to figure out that was the case and stopped falling over so easily he started to get the calls, except from about 2 refs who are living in last year. I agree with whoever said he initiates contact. I think that's true as well. He's become more Ching-like and that's good. He may not have amazing dribbling skills, but they're solid and he can ball fake.

 

I think some of it has to do with the number of times he's asked to hold the ball while waiting for help. His ball shielding in excellent and a lot of his fouls come with his back to the defender. A combination of that and playing very hard and physical all the time, he's a scrapper, a personality that fits well with the team this year.

 

He's also a very strong guy and has a tendency to try to leverage that to bull his way around (as opposed to trying to use speed he doesn't really have to go around people). I remember one play earlier in the season where he had the ball on the right wing with a defender right on him, and he pulled his left arm up to get better leverage and bulled a defender all the way to the box.

 

how many of those fouls were the results of a dive?

the interesting stat to me is Mullan ... he's missed time with injury but is still that high up?

 

On Moreno, he has gotten very few calls that I remember from his dives. As someone posted, I actually think once he stopped diving so much, he's gotten more calls.

On Mullan, yeah, it is pretty surprising he's so high up given the time he's missed. But don't forget that Moreno played very few minutes in the first month and a half of the season. Neither of them has played as many minutes as others on the list.

Here's the top 12 in the league in Fouls Suffered, also showing the "Fouls per 90 Minutes" so you can see the data normalized. You can see that Moreno and Mullan are actually #1 and #2 in the league in fouls drawn per 90 minutes of playing time, followed by Cancela from NE (never would have guessed that), Adu (would have guessed that) and Ruiz (would have guessed that):

Code:

Player       Fouls Suffered    Minutes    Fouls/90 minutes   Rank (F/90 Min)
[B]Moreno          62              1258             4.43                   1[/B]
Arnaud          56              1588             3.17                   6
Cuadros         50              1543             2.92                   8
[B]Mullan          47              1047             4.04                   2[/B]
Martino         44              1439             2.75                   9
T Martins       44              1646             2.41                  11
[B]Cancela         41               945             3.90                   3[/B]
Dempsey         39              1170             3.00                   7
[B]Adu             38               906             3.77                   4[/B]
L Gonzalez      38              1269             2.70                  10
Mapp            38              1541             2.22                  12
[B]Ruiz            38              1072             3.19                   5[/B]

 

I think Cancela is like Adu. He goes down very easily. Maybe not a dive exactly, but still makes a lot plays in hopes of drawing contact and with a plan to go down as soon as he does so.

I hope that some of this goes out of Adu after this weekend. He got bumped, chose to stay upright and got rewarded with a goal.

The players IMO getting the most calls on dives this year are Pando, Dempsy, and Panchito.

 

Sorry, who is Panchito? Is that Cancela's nickname?

I'm surprised Ruiz is not on your list of divers....

 

QC, you nailed it.

I agree. I was thrilled when he was acquired... I know he has his limitations, I had a good feeling he would fit in. He always impressed me when we played the Gals (and he actually played).

Imagine how important his ability to draw fouls will be when he's on the field with Davis and Ching!

 

It's funny, but I actually had the opposite reaction to you. I remember him playing for LA against us, and I was disappointed when we got him. I thought, "Why are we getting that dirty, cheating, diving, prick?"

Funny how a uniform and a few weeks will change an opinion!

But now I see him as a hard-nosed, blue-collar, physical player who is not afraid to give what he gets. (He gives it before he gets it?... so what?!)

I still think of him as our "off the bench" guy even though he has been starting since Ching's injury, and I expect him to politely make way once Ching returns. ...or possibly with the return of Davis even... (with Mullan as forward? ...doubt that though...)

 

I swear I put a post into this thread about a "cards/foul" stat. It looks like someone didn't like it. Would a PM with a suggestion for what was wrong be too much to ask?

My point was probalby hard to get a handle on. I thnk that the DC game was a clear example of how inconsistent the refs can be as both Moreno and Cerritos took shots from DC players that warrented cards and none were shown, but fouls from both Robinson and Califf on Freddy drew cards.

 

he gets hit so much, goes down, and gets back up again, that i was thinking he's like one of those "wack-a-mole" games at an amusement park ... Alejandro "Wack-a" Moreno ...

 

Panchito is the nickname of that little dweb that plays for Chivas. Actually he's an okay player. I think his real name is Mendoza, but Thomas Roentgen always calls him Panchito on TV. He ways about 100 # so the refs tend to treat him like a child.

Ruiz used to flop a lot. Perhaps he still does. But not a lot of FC'D road games get TV and few games overall has he not been injured or with the Guat nats. I think I've seen him play about 2 games all season so it didn't seem fair to judge him since I had qualified my comment as this year. That's all.

 

The foul on Cerritos by Boswell that was the worst of the fouls actually drew a card, but it was the wrong color in that it was just yellow. That's really worse than no card at all because then the league considers the play seen and ajudicated by the ref. No card at all and the league might review it for a multigame suspension and fine, but not with a yellow card given. The league's refs have been consistant though in that they've been giving only yellows even for violent extracurriculars. Dema had yet another like that this past weekend...a tackle that was so high and so late you wouldn't in any way realistically call it part of the play or a tackle in that sense. Full of malace, intent and risk for injury.
Bruce is so pissed at CONCACAF that so many Nats got hurt. Really MLS is little better.
I guess though if you're on the bench and snap a towel at someone...now that is dangerous stuff that should bring a red.

 

I do remember that play!

 

Besides his strenght and determination, he has deceptive speed (not over 40 yards, but over short distances 10-20 yards) and excellant timing. His dribbling is better than most people give him credit because of his timing.

Lastly, as an old defender, I hated playing against players like him. Therefore, you tended to give out "frustration fouls".

 

Very good observation. I have been pushed from the middle of the field to the back line in my old age, and I tend to give a little extra to the big guys who play keep-away.

 

amazing

 

You're right. He also gives a half smile at em so as to make em want to do it again. Gotta love it.

 

What was "pseudo" about that kick? It was real and not the only one he got from Goose. I've watched the tape many times and felt that if it were me, I would definitely want to be wearing a chain-mail jock. -pain-