More post game thoughts

The Good:

Newell’s won, on a pitch they don’t get results on very often. Without Cristian Fabianni and Walter Fretes. With a new coach with three days of practice and a vast total of ZERO days previous experience in the Primera A or B.

Gaston Machin and German Caffa impressed. I expected good things of Machin, and he delivered. He was the one consistent thing on the attack. Caffa was somewhat of a pleasant surprise. He was basically only tested once, but I liked the confidence he displayed when he came off the line to grab corners and long balls in the air. He’s not afraid to charge in amongst the trees. He even drew a foul on one of the Gimnasia players and was knocked down twice.

The defense recovered from a bit of a shaky start and built a wall around the goal. They continue to be the heart of the team.

The Bad:

The attack was inconsistent to say the least. Early on, it was all Gimnasia, but they were shooting blanks. When Newell’s did attack throughout the match, it was an every man for himself kind of thing. They were unable to mount any kind of sustained attack. I’d like to blame it on the lack of practice time as a unit, but except for Machin, these guys where all here last season and during the preseason, so no excuses there. Despite manager Fernando Gamboa’s vow to always be aggressive, la lepra were usually anything but.

Leonel Vangioni and Hernan Bernardello were missing on the attack. Sometimes it seemed as though Juan Ferreyra was all alone up top.

Set pieces were not good. The delivery was usually too low to take advantage of. We’ve got some guys that can get up, so put the ball there. Instead most balls were somewhere that I could take advantage of and that is not a good thing.

The Ugly:

Alejandro Da Silva. If you saw or listened to the match, you know what I mean. If you didn’t, well it was like being a man down on offense and not much better than that on defense. And it wasn’t even his lack of production. Ferreyra wasn’t a threat in front of goal, either, but hustled his butt off. He was all over the ball and tried to create something on offense. As they say, he left it all on the field. Little Al, on the other hand, might not have even needed a shower. That’s what drove me crazy. Da Silva came close to giving useless a bad name. He is capable of playing a good game, he did it a few times last season, but he was invisible this game.

Man of the Match:

That is a tough call between Rolando Schiavi, the captain of the team and leader of the defense, and German Re, who had another strong performance in defense and scored the only goal of the game. I even gave some thought to giving it to the defense, because with the lack of cohesion on the offensive side of things, they spent a lot of time defending. But in the end I chose German Re. At 27, he is the club’s next idol and he is Newell’s through and through. He made numerous defensive stops and was in the right place to slot Machin’s rebound home.

Final Thoughts:

Since Boca Juniors decided to jaunt through Europe, next week’s match has been postponed, meaning Newell’s will have two weeks to get the attack shaped up. Two weeks should give them time to get the paperwork in on Fabbiani and Fretes, for one. Two weeks for Gamboa to instill more of his system and for all the new players to get used to each other. And two weeks for Newell’s to loan out Da Silva.

Category: Team News

Tags: Team News

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