Tuesday, April 6, 2010

RBNY Tuesday Kick-Around



Good afternoon! Just a few bits and pieces to share with you on this fantastic Tuesday here in RBNY land. Red Bulls coach Hans Backe underwent a surgical procedure to remove his gallbladder late Monday night. This, after being diagnosed with cholecystitis. It's fairly certain that Mr. Backe will not fly with the team to California for this coming Saturday's match against Chivas USA. Nevertheless, the Red Bulls are confident that the system Mr. Backe has put in place, plus the leadership of Richie Williams, will enable them to continue their winning ways while he's recuperating.

The Red Bulls, fielding a mostly reserve line-up, today defeated Rutgers University by the score of 5-0. Conor Chinn and Irving Garcia scored two each, with Academy product Juan Agudelo also getting on the score sheet through a free kick goal (although some reports have Danleigh Borman as having scored this one, not Agudelo). Edit: after watching a video of the goal, it's clear that it was scored by #11 Danleigh Borman.

Now on to this guy:



University of Virginia midfielder Tony Tchani was the second overall pick at the 2010 MLS Superdraft. The Red Bulls passed on local product Dilly Duka, selected 8th overall by Columbus, to bring in Tchani, who had been touted as being "The next Shalrie Joseph". Well, this little blurb, from Hub City Hooligans (who was watching the RBNY/Rutgers scrimmage), via Twitter caught my eye this morning:
tchani is not looking good. aaaaand he's playing college kids.
Now, the only time I'd seen Tchani play was in the Red Bulls/Santos friendly. He came on as a sub very late in the game so I really couldn't make a sound evaluation of his form (or lack of form) from that performance. It did seem strange to me that the player who'd been picked 2nd overall had not even had a cameo in our first two MLS games, so I posted on Big Soccer and asked: WTF??? Homebrew brought this interesting post to my attention, and I quote just a bit of it here:
Tchani has been "lazy and disinterested" in their words, has not staked a claim on any particular position and doesn't seem to want to. "Of the five rookies he's been the least impressive by miles.
Another person, who was at today's scrimmage, had this to say:
Tchani...where do i start? He seems to lack the intensity needed in the center of the park. You need a little bit of a pittbull mentality to play CM (unless you're valdaramma) He's not silky enough offensivley to make up for his lack of bite. I got a soft vibe from him. He played too deep for most of the game. First half he was basically invisable. 2nd half when Rutgers started burning out he had some solid passes and worked a great give and go from the middle of the field...he passed to hall..then he made a run and hall found him..he dribbled in teh box and served it up to Chinn IIRC for a goal (coulda been garcia) I dont think we'll be seeing much of him with the first team for the first couple months of the season atleast. Hans/williams/goran have project on their hands.
It's way, way too early to start calling Tchani "a bust of epic proportions" (or even just a bust) but, at the moment, it would seem he has Robinson, Stammler, Sinisa and even Sassano ahead of him in the defensive mifielder pecking order. It looks like Tim Ream has been the real steal of the 2010 Draft, with Coach Backe, the great Mike Petke and even Bouna "Time" Condoul lavishing him with big-time praise. I haven't heard a peep about Tchani, unfortunately, but here's hoping the promise turns into reality.

In other Red Bulls news:
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Posted by viper at 1:51 PM
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