Lukas MacNaughton

[jonovision]

1 hour ago, RS said:

I personally like Waterman and think he should be called ahead of MacNaughton because he passes my eye test, but much of the discussion — or blinders, if you will — are based on Montreal being far better defensively than TFC this season, and thus Waterman is far more deserving of a call-up because of that.

Yes, the team strength argument is a bad one. Waterman is ahead of MacNaughton for me because he is faster, has the appearance to my eye of having more composure and skill, and importantly, has 3000 minutes more MLS experience. MacNaughton has a few advantages too, his ability in the air being one of them. Having been selected by Herdman before is also another tick in Waterman's column.

[narduch]

We are basically 1 injury away from maybe needing to call one of Waterman or McNaughton.

[RS]

20 minutes ago, jonovision said:

Yes, the team strength argument is a bad one. Waterman is ahead of MacNaughton for me because he is faster, has the appearance to my eye of having more composure and skill, and importantly, has 3000 minutes more MLS experience. MacNaughton has a few advantages too, his ability in the air being one of them. Having been selected by Herdman before is also another tick in Waterman's column.

Agreed on all counts. Like you, I think MacNaughton only wins out aerially over Waterman at the moment but both players are still improving and could add more weapons to their respective arsenals.

MacNaughton's lack of speed is a big negative in my mind, although if he's surrounded by pace like he would be for Canada he could hide that flaw fairly well, similar to Vitoria in that regard.

[Sal333]

4 hours ago, Ruffian said:

So what is your point? We shouldn't talk about TFC players that are doing well?

Talk as much as you want but don't expect agreement when it comes to considering him for the WC squad.

[Sal333]

1 hour ago, narduch said:

We are basically 1 injury away from maybe needing to call one of Waterman or McNaughton.

Waterman maybe. McNaughton, I highly doubt it. McNaughton is more like 2 or 3 injuries away.

[BearcatSA]

1 hour ago, jonovision said:

Yes, the team strength argument is a bad one. Waterman is ahead of MacNaughton for me because he is faster, has the appearance to my eye of having more composure and skill, and importantly, has 3000 minutes more MLS experience. MacNaughton has a few advantages too, his ability in the air being one of them. Having been selected by Herdman before is also another tick in Waterman's column.

Or not.  He wasn't selected for the last  friendly/CNF window, no?  I would have thought that would have been a good opportunity to look at him again.

[Unnamed Trialist]

1 hour ago, RS said:

Agreed on all counts. Like you, I think MacNaughton only wins out aerially over Waterman at the moment but both players are still improving and could add more weapons to their respective arsenals.

MacNaughton's lack of speed is a big negative in my mind, although if he's surrounded by pace like he would be for Canada he could hide that flaw fairly well, similar to Vitoria in that regard.

I don't care about the speed or aerial arguments too much, because there are plenty of cases of slow and/or shorter Centre Backs who have been great. 

Size and height, in fact, is what you get increasingly more of without exception the lower down you go in football tiers. Speed can be relative too. 

I've seen tall slow CBs who were top at their position (watched Rafa Márquez for years), and have seen short CBs who were very effective, thinking of Mascherano, who was a miracle of modern football, a reconverted DM and not even 5 foot 9.

True, usually the partner compensates. Two who are both slow, or both short, that is unusual. Cannavaro, also short, played beside Thuram for many years (and I think on different clubs, forget).

But what most slow CBs have is good positioning and anticipation, they know how to put their shoulder in, they make contact or cover the stronger foot, to throw off or contain a faster or tricker striker at critical moments. Or they lay back and give themselves space when further out, and close down effectively when the rival is approaching or in the box.

If you are shorter, true, you have a problem in the air, but only in principle. The Barça I prefer never received a lot of crosses because in our best version we neutralised them on the wings or closed down those crossing. We still get scored on in other ways (counters, when the defensive system is not set).

I was short and slight playing soccer and always jumped for balls against much taller players. As a matter of principle, because my coaches said jump. And because I could not match most others, I always put my hip into the rival first or jumped into him. I did not win balls, they did not either. So you neutralise. I was also fast, as I did track and kept being moved into shorter races and had good times, but I could not defend a dribble or tackle well at all. All I could do was hold and not get beaten, or reposition myself with my speed. Logically, I was sent to play on the wing (blew out my Achilles playing futsal about 14 years ago and that was that).

I won't judge MacNaughton on speed, and frankly, when the team is bleeding goals, how do you really know if he is good or not? And yes, most definitely: club results have to have a direct relationship on call-ups for all non core players. If Brym is scoring regularly but no spectacularly, and Sparta is getting great results, we have to consider him. I wouldn't take Smith in Ligue 2 to Qatar but if his team is leading their league in late October you have to think twice. There is not a national team coach in the world who does not consider team results when looking at individual performance, and we shouldn't be any different.

[BearcatSA]

I think that the outside defenders in a back three (which is our base formation) need to have some recovery burst moreso than being a CB in the duo of a four man back line because natural, trained fullbacks can all also provide coverage along with the CB partner.  Johnston, Miller, Kennedy, Henry all have some when playing there.  Has Vitoria played on the right of the back three during Herdman's tenure?

 

[MauditYvon]

He’s our Grealish

[MauditYvon]

4 hours ago, narduch said:

We are basically 1 injury away from maybe needing to call one of Waterman or McNaughton.

Vitoria, Miller, Henry, Johnston, Kennedy, Cornelius and Waterman are ahead. That’s 7 CBs. So more like 2-3 injuries.

Vitoria for sure and probably Henry will be out of the program after WC. You could say it opens 2 spots, but they might be filed by Halbouni, Campagna and Smith.

Maybe he will end up with 10 caps. But I don’t see what he could bring to that squad. He’s not even top 7 in our less talented position. 

We could also add James if he sees pitch, or Tom Homes if he can commit…

I’m happy for the guy and for CPL, but if he plays for Canada, it’s not really good news. Kind of same for Waterman (although he has chemistry with Johnston and Miller, that’s valuable).

Edited August 1, 2022 by MauditYvon

[Aird25]

1 hour ago, MauditYvon said:

Vitoria, Miller, Henry, Johnston, Kennedy, Cornelius and Waterman are ahead. That’s 7 CBs. So more like 2-3 injuries.

How can Waterman be ahead of himself?

[Aird25]

5 hours ago, narduch said:

We are basically 1 injury away from maybe needing to call one of Waterman or McNaughton.

Which is not such a bad situation to have, comparatively. We haven’t had the luxury of not calling starting MLS CBs in the past 

[Ivan]

7 hours ago, InglewoodJack said:

The guy’s 27 and has only been playing full time soccer for like 3 years. He’s currently at his “peak” and that is being a member of one of the worse defences in the MLS. The only time he’s played for Canada is at the university level. Maybe he gets called up for a dinky game against Martinique or something, but to think that he’ll ever play a meaningful minute for Canada against actual opponents is a bit ambitious IMO. 
 

he’s got good hair though. The modelling thing could work out for him. 

I agree with you that McNaughton is not going to get a Canada call-up, at least not to Qatar.  I do like Waterman more than him.  But to suggest he should retire because of his play in his first MLS season after (as you say) 3 years of full time soccer is a little harsh, don't you think?  If so, Mavinga and O'Neill should retire before him.

[InglewoodJack]

23 minutes ago, Ivan said:

I agree with you that McNaughton is not going to get a Canada call-up, at least not to Qatar.  I do like Waterman more than him.  But to suggest he should retire because of his play in his first MLS season after (as you say) 3 years of full time soccer is a little harsh, don't you think?  If so, Mavinga and O'Neill should retire before him.

That part was tongue and cheek, haha, just that I don’t think he’s close to playing meaningfully for Canada, and I think the chances of him doing so are slimmer than him just becoming a model, which are probably slim considering he is a professional soccer player with many years left in his career. 

[jonovision]

Wouldn't be the first TFC/fringe MNT/model CB

[BearcatSA]

33 minutes ago, jonovision said:

Wouldn't be the first TFC/fringe MNT/model CB

Who is Adrian Cann?

Mayim, I'll take "Fringe MNT/model players" for 400, please 😃

[Ally McCoist]

Based on his form recently for TFC I think we see him get a call-up after the World Cup (Nations League).

[rydermike]

On 8/1/2022 at 9:49 PM, InglewoodJack said:

That part was tongue and cheek, haha, just that I don’t think he’s close to playing meaningfully for Canada, and I think the chances of him doing so are slimmer than him just becoming a model, which are probably slim considering he is a professional soccer player with many years left in his career. 

Well the chances of him becoming a model aren't slim. He actually is a model. It's not a joke because he's good looking, it's that he actually (still) does it. 

https://www.keymodelmgmt.com/lukas

https://www.sutherlandmodels.com/men/144-lukas-macnaughton-athlete/

I agree though that I don't think he's close to playing to Canada. Defensively, he's solid, but his ball playing ability needs work though. There were multiple times in the game yesterday where he just hoofed the ball all the way downfield and giving up possesion (under light-moderate pressure) rather than making a play. Needs to shore up that aspect of the game before he can be considered for a national team role). 

Edited August 7, 2022 by rydermike

[Bison44]

I remember another model who used to play CB for TFC.  

[Cicero]

Looking at highlights from TFC-Nashville. MacNaughton was 100% responsible for Zimmerman's 84th minute headed goal. He was clearly tasked with man-marking him. On that play, he was slow off the mark when Zimmerman broke toward the goal, and couldn't recover in time to get up high enough to challenge his header.

On Sapong's penalty win, he was angled toward the central ball carrier (Mukhtar?) and when the ball was played across he was unable to intercept and then turned awkwardly and wasn't able to recover to challenge Sapong. It appeared that both Mavinga and Bradley had a play on Mukhtar, so one could argue his decision on the play was poor, but the slow turn was fatal. He did some good things in the game too, but CB's are judged on their mistakes, and he made two that led to goals. Not egregious, fall-on-his-ass, or silly challenge mistakes, but subtle mistakes that a better CB probably would not have made. Not two of them anyway.

[VinceA]

1 hour ago, Cicero said:

Looking at highlights from TFC-Nashville. MacNaughton was 100% responsible for Zimmerman's 84th minute headed goal. He was clearly tasked with man-marking him. On that play, he was slow off the mark when Zimmerman broke toward the goal, and couldn't recover in time to get up high enough to challenge his header.

On Sapong's penalty win, he was angled toward the central ball carrier (Mukhtar?) and when the ball was played across he was unable to intercept and then turned awkwardly and wasn't able to recover to challenge Sapong. It appeared that both Mavinga and Bradley had a play on Mukhtar, so one could argue his decision on the play was poor, but the slow turn was fatal. He did some good things in the game too, but CB's are judged on their mistakes, and he made two that led to goals. Not egregious, fall-on-his-ass, or silly challenge mistakes, but subtle mistakes that a better CB probably would not have made. Not two of them anyway.

In fairness Zimmerman is the best CB in the league.

[Aird25]

1 hour ago, Cicero said:

Looking at highlights from TFC-Nashville. MacNaughton was 100% responsible for Zimmerman's 84th minute headed goal. He was clearly tasked with man-marking him. On that play, he was slow off the mark when Zimmerman broke toward the goal, and couldn't recover in time to get up high enough to challenge his header.

On Sapong's penalty win, he was angled toward the central ball carrier (Mukhtar?) and when the ball was played across he was unable to intercept and then turned awkwardly and wasn't able to recover to challenge Sapong. It appeared that both Mavinga and Bradley had a play on Mukhtar, so one could argue his decision on the play was poor, but the slow turn was fatal. He did some good things in the game too, but CB's are judged on their mistakes, and he made two that led to goals. Not egregious, fall-on-his-ass, or silly challenge mistakes, but subtle mistakes that a better CB probably would not have made. Not two of them anyway.

Admittedly I probably have a soft spot for MacNaughton after he helped us win our championship in Victoria, but that seems like an extremely harsh assessment of one player, and an extremely lenient assessment of others involved. I think it was Akinola that was marking the space on Zimmerman goal, and completely missed the header

[Cicero]

17 minutes ago, Aird25 said:

Admittedly I probably have a soft spot for MacNaughton after he helped us win our championship in Victoria, but that seems like an extremely harsh assessment of one player, and an extremely lenient assessment of others involved. I think it was Akinola that was marking the space on Zimmerman goal, and completely missed the header

I'd like for him to succeed as well, and there were certainly other contributors to the breakdown leading to the penalty goal. However, over a season, and a career, it's the sum of all these little plays that add up. TFC gave up three goals, he played a role in two of them. No defender is going to stop every chance from occurring, but both of these were plays where he had a chance to and did not. If that's a trend, then that's a problem. I haven't watched all the games, but it hasn't been pretty on the back-end for TFC. It would have been nice for him to step into a well-functioning team D, but he didn't, so he's going to get exposed to more pressure than he would with better defenders around him. Can only hope he keeps adapting and doesn't lose his spot.

[Bison44]

23 minutes ago, VinceA said:

In fairness Zimmerman is the best CB in the league.

And he bangs in 3-4 every season.

Throw mavinga, Oneill, Salceido (before he left) and Mcnaughton in a bag and shake.  From their play you couldnt tell which was the DP, the TAM/GAM guy, the MLS journeyman and the rookie.  From my viewpoint, watching every week, you;ve got a couple guys adjusting to new leagues, one space cadet whose play has fallen off the table and a couple cheap guys doing pretty good as depth 3-4th CBs.  Still too early to tell whether how effective Henry will be this time around.  

[BearcatSA]

On 8/7/2022 at 11:43 PM, Bison44 said:

I remember another model who used to play CB for TFC.  

I noted that a week earlier but you've got the catwalk proof.  Quite the abs on the lad!