Guess Who’s Coming to FC Dallas?

By: Robert | July 10th, 2007

I’ll be honest with you, I don’t like discussing rumors. Like time they are always fleeting and seemingly never enough of either. You can hear a rumor one moment, turn around and have it discredited. Sometimes they are based in fact but more often they are just the consequences of people fantasizing and wishing that something could/would happen. I normally don’t even follow them; I can’t count how many players have tried out with the team only to go home before anything materializes (memo to anyone considering playing in MLS, this is not 1996 anymore, you can’t just show up and collect a paycheck; there are guys that will take your job.)

But today’s rumors involve “big-time” players, including one that had me in the backyard for hours trying to emulate what I’d just seen. MLS “sources” revealed the other day that FC Dallas has been in contact with Chilean forward Sebastian “Chamagol” Gonzalez and will be talking to Brazilian midfielder/forward Denílson (I can’t read Arabic so I cant find him on the team’s site) early this week (maybe by the time you’ve read this) with the possibility of signing one of them as the teams designated player. Both of these players bring plenty of positive attributes to the field but in both cases the positives are outweighed by the negatives and thus both should be avoided.

I’ll admit Chamagol was a bit of a mystery to me until I did some research. At 5’6”, 147lbs. he’s a small forward owned by the Mexican-side Tigres, who in the past has had some absolute monster seasons: 29 goals over 33 games in the 2002-2003 Apertura/Clausura seasons tops the list. But over the last three seasons he’s bounced around the Mexican league scoring only 10 goals over a total of 46 games, with a career low, 1, coming this past term. While he’s still fairly young (28y 6mo.) this drop-off in production since his last session in Atlante (2004-2005) is quite dramatic. A four-year lull in scoring combined with the fact that his constant switching of teams means that apparently no one thinks he can regain his scoring touch and coming to FC Dallas does not seem like a starting point for a career turnaround. We already have one high-priced striker whose under-performing (Carlos Ruiz did get a goal in the US Open Cup on Monday night,) there’s no need to go and replace him with a higher-priced one. FC Dallas needs a player to score and Chamagol hasn’t done that in years.

If Denílson joined FC Dallas today he might instantly become the most talented player in the league. I know someone may throw out some other name to contradict my claim but after watching Denílson do about 17 step-overs in the box against that defender from the Netherlands in the 1998 World Cup; I went outside and tried my hardest to copy what I just saw. That was the first time I ever saw someone do something that I thought if I just worked hard enough I could do as well and at the end of the day failed (I’ve even dunked a basketball before.) But Denílson de Oliveira Araújo is the definition of unfulfilled potential. There is a reason he plies his trade in the Saudi Premier League and it’s not his love of Al-kabsa or Jarish. At almost 30 (29y 10mo.) he still should have some tread left on his proverbial tires but he plays the same position and is roughly the same type of player as Arturo Alvarez. Of course Denílson is a little better, but at eight years older and ten times the cost he isn’t that much better. Neither of those facts seem like the basis of a sound soccer or business decision.

It’s been argued on the FC Dallas interwebs that the addition of Denílson would give the Hoops that strongest midfield in the league. I would argue that with Juan Toja, Arturo Alvarez, Pablo Ricchetti and Marcelo Saragosa we already have one of the strongest midfields in the league. The designated player rule should be used to address a major need, not reinforce a strength. In our case we need to put the ball in the back of the net and Denílson does not guarantee that.

If these rumors of meetings are true then I like the mindset, the front office boys realize that this team is good enough to lift multiple trophies this season. But unless they know something that I don’t know (which is entirely possible) they can’t make these moves; because this is Dallas where the FC does not stand for “forced combinations.”

HOOPS PRIDE!

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