Dribbled forward, plays the ball wide, the ball is crossed in and deflected out to him 16 yards from goal, and he finishes with confidence. Against weak opposition, but it will help him moving forward.
The club was quite excited: GOOOOOOOOOOOOOL !! Contento Cara!! Luca De la Torre GOL! GOL! GOL! #ContentoCara 😃💙0-3 | 65' #GernikaCelta pic.twitter.com/doJPPNpxKU— RC Celta (@RCCelta) December 22, 2022
The goal: ⚽️ Luca de la Torre scores Celta’s 3rd of 3 in a Copa del Rey win this afternoon! https://t.co/5sgI17Tdft— Yanks Abroad (@usmnt_abroad) December 22, 2022
Fourth division team from the city that inspired Picasso's famous painting after getting bombed by the Nazis in '37, Guernica.
On the bench: 📋✅ ¡Nuestro 𝗫𝗜 inicial 🆚 @SevillaFC!#CeltaSevillaFC #LaLiga https://t.co/GzLWUP2MvQ pic.twitter.com/eqzmdDtVL4— RC Celta (@RCCelta) December 30, 2022 Up 1-0 at the half on ESPN+.
89’ quick one touch settle and shot from the top of the box. Does look like it was deflected by the defender like Luca was claiming. Overall he seemed very tidy in today’s play. Hope he gets more minutes.
Is it simply that he's not up to par for the league or is the club pretty jam packed with quality in the midfield?
I don't know about "jam packed with quality", but by the most basic and superficial of assessments (transfermarkt value) he's relatively well behind the other 6 players listed as midfielders.
It doesn't appear anything. It was 1 game, the first back from the WC, and he played 25 minutes. 3 of the 4 prior league games he was available for he stayed on the bench. And what it appears, is that Denis Suarez wasn't available due to a negotiation w/ Villarreal for June. That's one of his competitors. It may mean something, or it may mean nothing as it has before. FWIW, it appeared he played decently when he was in, albeit up a man later.
1 of those was a friendly, the other a cup match against a semi-pro team. He was always going to play in those matches. And he didn't even start in either.
Celta are a well managed club that prizes players being on the same page. Yday's game was the first time I saw LDLT displaying what makes him a good player. Previously I think they were working on getting the weak part of his game up to speed. I think he may make it at Celta. He sees the game well in the attacking half.
Starting today for Celta's cup game. 📑 Los 1⃣1⃣ elegidos por Carvalhal para continuar de inicio el viaje #EspanyolCelta ¡𝑴𝒖𝒆𝒓𝒐 𝒑𝒐𝒓 𝒆𝒍𝒍𝒐𝒔! ¡𝑽𝒂𝒎𝒐𝒔 𝒆𝒒𝒖𝒊𝒑𝒐! 💙 pic.twitter.com/Gv1OsEabWv— RC Celta (@RCCelta) January 3, 2023
Squad players, like Zack Steffen, start cup matches, and occasional league ones when they have too many players unavailable. That's the point of squad players. And then they subsequently get loaned/sold to their real clubs, like Middlesbrough.
This is a good opportunity for LDLT. He's being given a shot with what looks like a largely first-choice team around him, against another quality squad that also appears (by the shirt numbers) to be starting largely first-choice players. Highest-quality chance of the season for him.
Ok show me any 4 game run with him where he has played this many minutes with this team. I would call this an upturn.
Possibly, relative to the meager opportunities he was getting. At the same time, they'd only played 1 Cup match, for which he was unavailable. So it's still a minor, comparative sample. We'll have to see what happens in the league game, which will be in part impacted by his performance today I imagine.
It would be, but they are having technical difficulties. From what I saw briefly, LDLT was involved in the beginning of a goal-scoring attack. Did a nice give and go down the wing, didn't connect on the cross, but it was worked back in from the other side.