He deleted the original tweet, which referenced the Dutch Cup instead of Belgian... Kenny Saief was on the bench, DNP in Gent's 1-0 win vs Mechelen in the Belgium Cup Quarterfinals. #USMNT— Roderick MacNeil (@rodmacneil) December 16, 2015
On the bench today: Ploegopstellingen #gntkvk #COBW pic.twitter.com/muiPlKoztX— KAA Gent (@KAAGent) December 20, 2015
Starts today's match on the bench: http://forums.bigsoccer.com/threads/djair-parfitt-to-west-ham-academy.1987376/
Well, fellow Mercans, I decided to go slow on a bottle of Cutty Sark and watch the kid play over the past couple weeks. I sat down, sipped, and (30-45 minutes at a time) watched all 304 of Kenny’s Champions League Group H minutes from this fall. It’s SIGH-EFF, and he’s a good little player. Lots of bite, great at winning balls and a bulldog of a two way midfielder. Good touch, sticky feet, comfort on the ball. Michael Bradley lungs. SO left-footed. A word about Gent…I really grew to like the team. They play a very strange 3-4-2-1 with a lumbering Brian McBride-ish Laurent DePoitre up top and it worked sublimely in a group with Valencia, Zenit St. Petersburg, and Lyon. Put away your Steve Sampson jokes the four line goes extremely wide and the wide midfielders are responsible to defend in proportion to the attacking tendencies of the opposing fullbacks to help the back 3. So in his 67 minutes against Lyon in State Gerland, Kenny was running 80-yard sprints to help Ghanaian defender Nana Asare deal with former Manchester United right back Raphael as he combined with France midfielder Mathieu Valbuena on the overlap. Pinch in and there was 35-year-old Steed Malbranque pulling strings. Against Valenica there was Sofiane Feghouli, the Algerian international and former Liverpool right back Antonio Barragan working that same axis in the home match Gent won 1-0. Saief ran his ass off covering Valencia’s counters as his Gent teammates attacked relentlessly on the right (Saief was on the left). In the 49th minute, Kenny's quick cross was handled in the box setting up Gent's winning penalty. Six minutes later he did his groin and came off. In St. Peterburg, Kenny played on the right of midfield, (inverted) dealing with Hulk at times and Danny who is an unbelievable, unbelievable, selfless player (**sips scotch and commits to watching Portugal this summer**) and tracked Russian national team striker Oleg Shatov when he dropped to find the ball. Matt Miazga and Jordan Morris. Those are the only two players on the US November roster younger than Kenny Saief. DeAndre Yedlin is six months older than him. What an unbelievable opportunity this is for a young kid to play these Champions League games, and he looked like he belonged. Wolfsburg in February to come. So…(sip) here’s the thing….What happened as I watched him over these last few weeks, is I stopped looking for the player I wanted to see and just saw what I saw. And this is counter-intuitive to the Ramat HaSharon highlights on youtube with the sweet Euro music, but Saief did NOT REALLY look like a promising offensive talent. He always lost his shit around the box when he had an opportunity at goal, crossed decently (when he could get it off,) looked far better passing from deeper in midfield, or on the half turn at the center line, but definitely not the 18-yard-box. 90% of the time he passed it directly backwards or sometimes centrally to Brazilian midfielder Renato Neto. And you know what? Keeping possession against the teams he was playing against was impressive enough, and he did that well. Not that he doesn’t believe he’ll get there. Every damn free kick, you hear the whistle blow and there’s Kenny hitting his Mike Trout home run trot over to presumably take the free kick. Like he was Brad Davis in Houston. He stood there and postured with his teammates like, “No, I’ma bend it!” He never took one. He took one corner against Lyon, that’s it. And he can’t dribble anybody, not to save his life. No Seb Lletget comparison needed, not even in the same ball park. What he is though…….Whenever the Champions League feed hit halftime and showed stats as the subs languidly playing cross-field passes, Kenny Saief’s name showed up at number 1 in ground covered. Every Single Time. He is tough as balls. He has some Dema Kovalenko and Chris Armas in him. Kenny is sooo good at this one thing. He just takes the soccer ball from dudes. It’s September 29th in Russia, three weeks after Hulk made us look foolish at RFK, and here is Kenny Saief just running up and pantsing him like a goon. He’s gone with the ball and Hulk is crying on the ground. He is downright spritely and strong on the ball. KEEPS possession. Never makes a too vunlerable or too dangerous of a pass and usually makes good ones, at pace. He will take a 70-yard bullit pass down and kill it like a bean bag hitting a cornhole board. He will switch the ball 50 yards to the other flank without thinking about it and usually hit his mark. Think Marco Verratti-ish, but positionally versatile and not nearly as neat and clean. And completely one-footed. It was telling that in the final group stage game against Zenit, Hein Vanhaezebouck moved Asare into Saief’s spot so he could play Nigerian 20-year-old Moses Simon. Simon responded with both assists in a 2-1 victory that was presumably must-win. Kenny subbed on to kill off the last 2 minutes, having been benched for better offense but brought on for poise and toughness. And he IS fast. He tracked down some speedy guys. Has great closing speed. He just can’t really run WITH the ball very well, which sucks. He’s quick-twitch, not quick-speedy. After the Lyon match, I tried to think of another player in our pool who could be put were he was and perform as he did. I thought Fabian, Bedoya, Bradley, Jones could have…but when I got to Zardes and Williams and Morales and….Wil Trapp and Perry Kitchen, I thought no. I thought Graham Zusi no way. Feilhaber could have. Nagbe could have for sure. He is already a little bit more refined than our fringe pool, in a lot of cases. And at Petrovsky Stadion in the 56th minute, I thought I saw a glimpse of the finished product. Kenny saved a hospital ball and kept possession with a tough central pass, then sprinted 40 yards forward to support the forward play. When the ball turned over he charged back for it, back to the exact place he had kept possession 10 seconds earlier and helped leg Hulk off the ball. Suddenly with space to himself, he took three or four strides forward and played a simple ball, (a tempo ball) into space for his left winger. Cross. Goal. Hockey Assist. 1-1. It was an international caliber sequence. Promising, fearless player. YOUNG player. A player I feel will end up further back in midfield as his career goes on. And maybe more central. An 8 or a 6. A ball winner. A ball keeper. And at the end of the day, one of Abby’s “foreign guys,” who might just play for Israel. Anyway, I really enjoyed it. The scotch and the football. Glad to report.
Bedoya is a pretty good comparison, yea. Bedoya is a little better creatively with the ball, Saief has more bite in the tackle. But that's probably the closest comparison to anybody in our pool. Although stylistically they play kinda differently, but with similar roles in the team. I like Sacha a lot, and there is a lot of subtlety to his game and passing vision that he has developed. Hopefully Kenny will follow along those lines. He could very well end up being an upgraded Kjlestan, definitely.
Kenny Saief, the first Druze player to play in Champions League had amazing welcome when he returned to village! pic.twitter.com/xRSxFCUpZt— Raphael Gellar (@Raphael_Gellar) December 29, 2015
And here's an Israeli news story, with a video report, on Kenny's recent return to Israel and his village over the holidays. You can see it's quite a reception, and they bring up the question of his national team choice: http://www.sport5.co.il/HTML/Articles/Article.3075.202988.html
Meh. He's always said that he wants a call-up to the full Israel squad. I view the USA talk as his way to maybe push his case further with Israel. Though it doesn't help Israel that they don't have a manager right now so maybe he will be lost.
In your opinion is he good enough right now to play for Israel's first team? Do you think he should have already been called up?
I am sure he is, it is just a headache right now with the midfielders. Nir Bitton - Playing really well at Celtic Bibras Natkho - He was in the Russian Premier League's best 11 last year Beram Kayal - Was a regular at Celtic, now plays at Brighton Eran Zahavi - The guy is a superstar and just plays domestic because he carries Maccabi Tel Aviv Maor Melikson and Gil Vermouth both played in Europe and returned to Israel. They'll retire from the national team soon and I would expect Kenny to take their place. If he were a striker or defender, he'd have been called up already because that is where Israel is lacking quality and depth.
Starts in a friendly against Wurzburger Kickers: Oefenpot @KAAGent tegen Würzburger met Vandenbussche; Johansson, Mitrovic, Vitas; Wikheim, VDB, Deaux, Olayinka, Saief; Diédhiou, Coulibaly— Niels Poissonnier (@niels_27) January 8, 2016
And it looks like he was a "startelf." #FWK-Startelf vs @KAAGent: Wulnikowski - Billick, Weil, Schoppenhauer, Kurzweg - Fennell - Gutjahr, Karsanidis, Benatelli, Daghfous - Bieber— FC Würzburger Kickers (@fwk_1907) January 8, 2016
Gent with a 2-0 home win against Anderlecht today. Saief came on in the 78th minute for Dejaegere, who (I believe) was playing left mid in a 3-4-3: http://www.kaagent.be/supporter/wed...e-2015-2016/22/kaa-gent/rsc-anderlecht/digest
Moving Gent up to first (!!!), three points ahead of Club Brugge and five ahead of Anderlecht. Anderlecht, historically, has 3-5 players on the big league transfer wish list - this roster is no exception - so, this is arguably the highest quality level of any Yank not in the Top Five league.
Saief was on the bench today but did not play as Gent won 3-0 away to Standard Liege: http://www.kaagent.be/supporter/wed...15-2016/23/r-standard-de-lige/kaa-gent/digest