Dominick Zator

[Obinna]

1 hour ago, Bigandy said:

Heibert/zator sub: 
I actually remember posting about how the heibert sub was indicative of the depth chart after that game. With Kennedy going off injured, we needed a CB to fill in the middle. The most logical option would be to try and do a like for like sub. Zats fits the bill at central CB better than heibert. However, we shifted our defence around, moved cornelius and brought on heibert. That shifting only happens if you dont trust the next man up. (we also didnt trust cornelius at central CB during qualifying so putting him centrally in this game was quite the indication of how far down zats is viewed imo).

I'd like to think we are having a good faith and respectful debate here. You can't say the logical choice was to do a like-for-like change for Kennedy, then proceed to tell us the choice should have been Zator, a right-footed CB. We both know that Kennedy is a left-footed CB and Heibert is a left-footed CB.

Zator nor Hebiert had any business making their debut in the middle of a back 3 with Nations League Finals on the line. Clearly shifting the most experienced player to the middle and bringing on Heibert as an outside CB was the sensible thing to do, since the middle CB is the player most responsible for organizing the others, including the outside CBs who are more responsible for marking. Furthermore, Cornelius has the skillset to play in the middle of a back 3 more than Zator or Heibert do, which is why Malmo ended up playing him there. To be honest with Vitoria out I expected Cornelius to start that match in Kennedy's place, but fair play to Herdman because Kennedy's speed came in handy in the middle.

Anyways, I am enjoying the debate we are having but this is a pretty bad take and you generally make some good points, but this isn't one of them. 

Also, the second bolded part is equally ridiculous. Zator is not this kind of player. Maybe you haven't watched Zator or maybe you and I just evaluate players differently, but I find your assessment of who Zator is as a player to be bizzare.

I just don't see a player who would be great in the middle of a back 3, and same goes for Heibert, especially on a debut.

Full disclosure though - I very much questioned Kennedy being that player in the middle of a back 3, but he played well against Honduras (much less so against the USA) so take my opinion with a grain of salt.

Edited September 27, 2023 by Obinna

[Obinna]

1 hour ago, Bigandy said:

Johnston comparisons:
I looked at page 7 and only saw one comment that zator might sub in for the suspended johnston. Am I missing something?

Also, are you talking about player profiles or just the fact that both players can play CB and RB. I think the have very different profiles. Zator would never play at wingback at a decent level. He looks like a defensive fullback/CB playing fb when he plays RB. Johnston looks like a fullback playing CB when hes in a back 3.  I would never set up my team with the expectation that zator and johnston offer very similar traits to the team. 

Waterman: 
He was another player I wasnt excited about in any serious way. Its great to have him at our weakest position but he was never seriously considered to play at RB for CMNT. His quality at CB is also questionable. 
 

I don't want to ignore your other points, so....

No I don't think Zator is a wingback. I think he's a CB first and a RB second and a middle CB third.  

Johnston to me is a RB first, a RWB second, and a RCB third. 

But the thing is, he was playing very well at RCB during qualifying and we played mostly with 3 at the back, so the concern was what happens if we lose Johnston. Henry played there once I believe and did very pooly, but in theory he was the best option.

I totally agree that Johnston looks (and is) a fullback playing CB when he's in a back 3. I totally agree that Zator looks like a defensive fullback/CB playing fb when he plays RB. I am with you on all that 100%. I would not expect to get from Zator what Johnston provides. 

Important point - Recall that Johnston was/is able to shift from RCB to RB when we moved to a back 4. Zator despite looking like a CB playing FB was playing as a RB every week in Poland, which was the appeal of Zator. 

Oh and on page 7 there was also the comment from el Hombre basically saying that it made sense if Zator was being considered as the cover for Johnston, or something to that effect. 

[Bigandy]

23 minutes ago, Obinna said:

I'd like to think we are having a good faith and respectful debate here. You can't say the logical choice was to do a like-for-like change for Kennedy, then proceed to tell us the choice should have been Zator, a right-footed CB. We both know that Kennedy is a left-footed CB and Heibert is a left-footed CB.

Zator nor Hebiert had any business making their debut in the middle of a back 3 with Nations League Finals on the line. Clearly shifting the most experienced player to the middle and bringing on Heibert as an outside CB was the sensible thing to do, since the middle CB is the player most responsible for organizing the others, including the outside CBs who are more responsible for marking. Furthermore, Cornelius has the skillset to play in the middle of a back 3 more than Zator or Heibert do, which is why Malmo ended up playing him there. To be honest with Vitoria out I expected Cornelius to start that match in Kennedy's place, but fair play to Herdman because Kennedy's speed came in handy in the middle.

Anyways, I am enjoying the debate we are having but this is a pretty bad take and you generally make some good points, but this isn't one of them. 

Also, the second bolded part is equally ridiculous. Zator is not this kind of player. Maybe you haven't watched Zator or maybe you and I just evaluate players differently, but I find your assessment of who Zator is as a player to be bizzare.

I just don't see a player who would be great in the middle of a back 3, and same goes for Heibert, especially on a debut.

Full disclosure though - I very much questioned Kennedy being that player in the middle of a back 3, but he played well against Honduras (much less so against the USA) so take my opinion with a grain of salt.

I think you missed the spirit of my points. A like for like change in this context meant a Central cb subs on for a central cb. Had vitoria been on the bench he would have slotted in as a like for like even though kennedy and vitoria have a different strong foot.  

I also agree with all of your reasons as to why the subs panned out the way they did. However, the conclusions we derive from this are different. We have seen herdman move kennedy to rcb as he doesnt trust any right footed rcbs after johnston. Obviously he doesnt trust zats or Hiebert centrally. However, Hiebert had like 5 pro games under his belt and was only called up due to a late injury. Therefore, the spirit of my argument is "If zator had shown well in training, as a much more experienced player, he should have gotten the call over heibert who has literally every argument against him except hes comfortable playing on the left." Therefore i assume that zator was viewed as equal or lower than a completely inexperienced late call up. That is bad company to be in if you are someone who should be contributing to CMNT. 

Basically, the bar for the substitution was so low that I would expect any serious CMNT defenders to sub on before heibert in that game. I genuinely believe that bombito, mcnaughton, waterman, miller, zmg, vitoria all would have subbed on before heibert. Zator is the only CMNT CB who doesnt get on. 

[Bigandy]

20 minutes ago, Obinna said:

I don't want to ignore your other points, so....

No I don't think Zator is a wingback. I think he's a CB first and a RB second and a middle CB third.  

Johnston to me is a RB first, a RWB second, and a RCB third. 

But the thing is, he was playing very well at RCB during qualifying and we played mostly with 3 at the back, so the concern was what happens if we lose Johnston. Henry played there once I believe and did very pooly, but in theory he was the best option.

I totally agree that Johnston looks (and is) a fullback playing CB when he's in a back 3. I totally agree that Zator looks like a defensive fullback/CB playing fb when he plays RB. I am with you on all that 100%. I would not expect to get from Zator what Johnston provides. 

Important point - Recall that Johnston was/is able to shift from RCB to RB when we moved to a back 4. Zator despite looking like a CB playing FB was playing as a RB every week in Poland, which was the appeal of Zator. 

Oh and on page 7 there was also the comment from el Hombre basically saying that it made sense if Zator was being considered as the cover for Johnston, or something to that effect. 

I think theres some miscommunication then. My point is that zats and johnston are different player styles.  I think youre point is that they overlap positionally.  

My guess is that we both agree with each others points and we just misaligned the topic? 

[Obinna]

17 minutes ago, Bigandy said:

I think theres some miscommunication then. My point is that zats and johnston are different player styles.  I think youre point is that they overlap positionally.  

My guess is that we both agree with each others points and we just misaligned the topic? 

I think so especially when I saw that you do see Zator in the same way that I do, which is a CB playing as a FB. 

21 minutes ago, Bigandy said:

I think you missed the spirit of my points. A like for like change in this context meant a Central cb subs on for a central cb. Had vitoria been on the bench he would have slotted in as a like for like even though kennedy and vitoria have a different strong foot.  

I also agree with all of your reasons as to why the subs panned out the way they did. However, the conclusions we derive from this are different. We have seen herdman move kennedy to rcb as he doesnt trust any right footed rcbs after johnston. Obviously he doesnt trust zats or Hiebert centrally. However, Hiebert had like 5 pro games under his belt and was only called up due to a late injury. Therefore, the spirit of my argument is "If zator had shown well in training, as a much more experienced player, he should have gotten the call over heibert who has literally every argument against him except hes comfortable playing on the left." Therefore i assume that zator was viewed as equal or lower than a completely inexperienced late call up. That is bad company to be in if you are someone who should be contributing to CMNT. 

Basically, the bar for the substitution was so low that I would expect any serious CMNT defenders to sub on before heibert in that game. I genuinely believe that bombito, mcnaughton, waterman, miller, zmg, vitoria all would have subbed on before heibert. Zator is the only CMNT CB who doesnt get on. 

Fair enough on the bolded part. I cannot pretend my interpretation is the only valid one here. The way I see it was that an ability on the left trumped the lack of pro experience, because if Herdman was worried about his lack of pro experience he probably won't have called him to replace an injured Miller. There was also the benefit of cap tying Hiebert as well, so how much that played into it wel will never know.

Also, in my humble opinion, Zator had no chance of starting unless Johnston got injured and Herdman was married to the back 3. I feel like in that scenario we would have been able to really assess where Zator was on the depth chart. Since Zator positionally (not stylistically) was back up to Johnston, there was no way in my mind he could have trained his way on the field ahead of Johnston. Heibert meanwhile was positionally Miller's replacement and Cornelius' back up. Kennedy was Vitoria's back up.

But I will give your point some due here because you are right that he played Kennedy out of position on the right, ahead of Zator, even though Zator was (at least in my mind) the back up for Johnston. So yeah fair enough to think that had Zator blown the doors off in training that spot should have been his.

I would have loved to know how Herdman saw that. Maybe part of this was Zator not impressing in training enough to earn his trust, but maybe some of that was also building up Kennedy after he missed the World Cup due to injury, even if it meant playing him out of position to get him on the field..

[Unnamed Trialist]

If anything, this thread being lively lately, and the Doneil as well, go to show how poor our situation is when it comes to centre backs.

We have premium or at least solid elite players in every position except CB. Vitoria ended up being our stalwart, playing on a modest Portuguese club. Supposedly Millar has come up a bit. Kennedy was in B2 and I had hoped a few years there would lead to a Bundesliga 1 offer. Cornelius may get an offer for a jump up considering he's a key piece of the team leading in Sweden. Then some guys doing solidly in MLS.

But none of these profiles gives us a top centre back. 

[narduch]

2 hours ago, Unnamed Trialist said:

If anything, this thread being lively lately, and the Doneil as well, go to show how poor our situation is when it comes to centre backs.

We have premium or at least solid elite players in every position except CB. Vitoria ended up being our stalwart, playing on a modest Portuguese club. Supposedly Millar has come up a bit. Kennedy was in B2 and I had hoped a few years there would lead to a Bundesliga 1 offer. Cornelius may get an offer for a jump up considering he's a key piece of the team leading in Sweden. Then some guys doing solidly in MLS.

But none of these profiles gives us a top centre back. 

I basically feel the same about our GK situation. 

[Bigandy]

14 hours ago, Obinna said:

I think so especially when I saw that you do see Zator in the same way that I do, which is a CB playing as a FB. 

Fair enough on the bolded part. I cannot pretend my interpretation is the only valid one here. The way I see it was that an ability on the left trumped the lack of pro experience, because if Herdman was worried about his lack of pro experience he probably won't have called him to replace an injured Miller. There was also the benefit of cap tying Hiebert as well, so how much that played into it wel will never know.

Also, in my humble opinion, Zator had no chance of starting unless Johnston got injured and Herdman was married to the back 3. I feel like in that scenario we would have been able to really assess where Zator was on the depth chart. Since Zator positionally (not stylistically) was back up to Johnston, there was no way in my mind he could have trained his way on the field ahead of Johnston. Heibert meanwhile was positionally Miller's replacement and Cornelius' back up. Kennedy was Vitoria's back up.

But I will give your point some due here because you are right that he played Kennedy out of position on the right, ahead of Zator, even though Zator was (at least in my mind) the back up for Johnston. So yeah fair enough to think that had Zator blown the doors off in training that spot should have been his.

I would have loved to know how Herdman saw that. Maybe part of this was Zator not impressing in training enough to earn his trust, but maybe some of that was also building up Kennedy after he missed the World Cup due to injury, even if it meant playing him out of position to get him on the field..

I do see your logic with the whole heibert sub and the explanation is 100% logical and I agree with it.

I guess I can summarize that heibert and zator are tier 3 players and therefore not really realistic CMNT contributors. If zator was tier 2 or 1, I believe he wouldve subbed on ahead of heibert (in the same way that kennedy started as RCB over zator the game before). Therefore, zators lack of subbing in speaks to his spot on the depth chart which is down with the other tier 3 CB's (at the time). 

[Obinna]

38 minutes ago, Bigandy said:

I do see your logic with the whole heibert sub and the explanation is 100% logical and I agree with it.

I guess I can summarize that heibert and zator are tier 3 players and therefore not really realistic CMNT contributors. If zator was tier 2 or 1, I believe he wouldve subbed on ahead of heibert (in the same way that kennedy started as RCB over zator the game before). Therefore, zators lack of subbing in speaks to his spot on the depth chart which is down with the other tier 3 CB's (at the time). 

I can totally agree with that 👍

[Obinna]

4 hours ago, Unnamed Trialist said:

If anything, this thread being lively lately, and the Doneil as well, go to show how poor our situation is when it comes to centre backs.

We have premium or at least solid elite players in every position except CB. Vitoria ended up being our stalwart, playing on a modest Portuguese club. Supposedly Millar has come up a bit. Kennedy was in B2 and I had hoped a few years there would lead to a Bundesliga 1 offer. Cornelius may get an offer for a jump up considering he's a key piece of the team leading in Sweden. Then some guys doing solidly in MLS.

But none of these profiles gives us a top centre back. 

It also shows how desperately we need more games. When we are discussing at length players who are at the tail end of a roster at best, you know we are running out of CMNT material. 

No games. No transfer rumours. No big games or goals from our big players. The most noteworthy thing of late was Millar going to the Championship and scoring on his debut.

[Bigandy]

11 minutes ago, Obinna said:

It also shows how desperately we need more games. When we are discussing at length players who are at the tail end of a roster at best, you know we are running out of CMNT material. 

No games. No transfer rumours. No big games or goals from our big players. The most noteworthy thing of late was Millar going to the Championship and scoring on his debut.

So true. I do appreciate a good back and forth with you though! Alot of my stance was based off the past but this thread has gotten me to appreciate zator more. Hes now past heibert and waterman on a hypothetical depth chart in my mind. 

[FreddyCanuck]

Reading these comments, I just hope that De Fougerolles (or one of our U-17 CBs?) pans out and commits. He looks like he could develop into an all-around solid CB.

[Ansem]

1 hour ago, Bigandy said:

I guess I can summarize that heibert and zator are tier 3 players and therefore not really realistic CMNT contributors. If zator was tier 2 or 1, I believe he wouldve subbed on ahead of heibert (in the same way that kennedy started as RCB over zator the game before). Therefore, zators lack of subbing in speaks to his spot on the depth chart which is down with the other tier 3 CB's (at the time). 

Yes but that was according to the head coach assessment at the time. We don't know how the new head coach (Not Biello) will assess this.

[Bigandy]

1 minute ago, Ansem said:

Yes but that was according to the head coach assessment at the time. We don't know how the new head coach (Not Biello) will assess this.

Absolutely and since march, I would say his stock has increased. 
 

 

1 minute ago, FreddyCanuck said:

Reading these comments, I just hope that De Fougerolles (or one of our U-17 CBs?) pans out and commits. He looks like he could develop into an all-around solid CB.

LDF and Stefanovic in 2026 with smith, knight lebel and tomori on the bench... 

[Aird25]

On 9/28/2023 at 2:35 AM, Unnamed Trialist said:

If anything, this thread being lively lately, and the Doneil as well, go to show how poor our situation is when it comes to centre backs.

Henry's thread is active with people discussing his personability, Zators is active with people bemoaning his value. I don't think either of those speak to our situation

[Unnamed Trialist]

1 hour ago, Aird25 said:

Henry's thread is active with people discussing his personability, Zators is active with people bemoaning his value. I don't think either of those speak to our situation

I don't bemoan his value, he's just another CB on the list of below premium CBs.

[jordan]

Goal todayhttps://x.com/footcolic/status/1717942963806871911?s=46&t=KtwBDROwUH8sPUlYu2GlIA

[youllneverwalkalone]

This guy should be more on the radar as the RCB. We need to get AJ to RB or, at least, RWB if we have to go back 3.

[InglewoodJack]

Ok Dominick I see you… 

[sebdeserio]

I think Zator deserves another chance but it's interesting to see that at least based off of Fotmob  Godinho's also having a good if not better season.

[masster]

They almost blew a 3-0 lead. The match ended 5-3. It was an early season relegation battle as Korona Kelce was only sitting 1 point above the relegation places going into the match. The win moves them up to 3 places into 12th.

[Olympique_de_Marseille]

Of all the Korona Kielce players, he got the most minutes in the first part of the season:

https://www.korona-kielce.pl/w/znakomita-wiosna-duży-niedosyt-po-rundzie-jesiennej-tego-sezonu-podsumowanie-2023-roku-

 

Winter break training starts January 8th in Turkey:

https://www.korona-kielce.pl/w/plan-przygotowań-drużyny-do-rundy-wiosennej-sezonu-2023/2024

Edited January 6 by Olympique_de_Marseille

[Kadenge]

Anyone know if Zator has ever  played as a DM?

[Bigandy]

On 1/6/2024 at 10:37 AM, Kadenge said:

Anyone know if Zator has ever  played as a DM?

I'm pretty confident he never played dm as a youth or at u of c. I never saw him play DM for foothills or cavalry either

[Unnamed Trialist]

9 minutes ago, Bigandy said:

I'm pretty confident he never played dm as a youth or at u of c. I never saw him play DM for foothills or cavalry either

Agreed, and sorry so long replying to @Kadenge. In all the reports out of Poland, I have never seen him other than CB or outside back.