Because he's a bad mudder****** 2 goals, 1 fine assist this weekend............and he's a DEFENDER (say it like "he coulda been a CON-TEN-DA"). Go see the clips on YA and tell me you ain't impressed (he out Hey-dudes........Frankie) 3rd leading scorer on the team now, voted 2nd best player on the team so far this year (best defender), shining in Euro competition 2 years in a row, voted 3rd best transfer in Belgium league earlier this year, built like Der Terminator, can long throw-in FARRRRRRR or jump up as an extra forward in late minutes (imagine the Casey, McBride, Cooper, Gooch line w/Lewis, Donavon/Cherundolo pumpin' in balls late) and only 22 and interest from Italian League........ Upon this rock, we build our defender ladies and gents.....
He's a defender by position but not by attitude. While at Clemson he never seemed to play like a defender. He was always biased more towards going forward than defending. Defending seemed to be something he was more than willing to leave to the other guys in the back line. Due to his relative skill, he's been moved back to defender but I don't think that's where his heart is. His cross today was oustanding. Better than his two goals. *A left footed cross from the right after pulling the ball behind his left foot* Wow. The move is usually used by a left footed player who happens to end up in the right corner but he's not left footed. Yet he did it anyway. Wow. His relative skill was pretty damn good today.
It seems that the coach at Liege made the decision to shift Gooch up after they were down 2-1. (We talked about this briefly on teh YA board too but here again) What an option for a coach to be able to shift his lineup and tactics without having to substitute an attacker for a defender. As AttackingMinded mentioned... he has been doing this for some time now. It seems like off the field he's similar to Pope - shy and unassuming (well as unassuming as a 6-3 240lb man can be)