so what's the verdict on frankie's season in columbus? when you guys signed him, i thought he'd be one of the best defenders in the league. but i only had the opportunity to see the crew five or so times this year. from what i saw, he got forward ALOT - though not to great effect. i don't recall his being out of position getting exploited too often, though. seemed to work hard. he looked pretty decent to me; though not a rock. then again, in the matches that i saw, your back didn't exactly hold it's form for all 90. not trying to rip frankie or the crew. just curious. how do you guys rate his year?
B- Started better than he finished. Was directly involved in a loss and tie (every little point counts). Worked well with Paule. Don't think he lived up to the hype, though. Solid slightly above average (B-).
He is a good defender. Amoung MLS defenders, I think he is in the top half. He makes an overlapping run well during the attack, good in 1-1 defending, play out of the back well. His overall grade is B. Having said that, however, his major weekness is his crossing - it is an F or D grade in this area. So, after all the hard work has been done, the attacks dies at the end because of his poor crossing. Due to his poor crossing, I'd rather see him joining up the attack only 2/3 and passing the ball to someone else who is more capable of crossing. He also should improve his long range shooting to be more accurate, i.e., add the Carlos Alberto quanlity to his game. With better crossing and good long rage short, it will improve him to the next level.
I agree, his crossing ability is really hit or miss. Sometimes he'd have a good one, but most times they we're great. But that also has to do with the position of the forwards. It's not like they are sitting targets that he is aiming for. However much his crossing ability detracted from his game, I thought he made some big differences on this team. He plays with a lot of passion and fire, and that could be seen more from him than almost anybody else out there. His speed would allow him to quickly recover on defense or enable him to provide quick support in some instances. Certainly would keep him and Paule... bar-none best new players this season.
Second this post. I also think that Hejduk's hustle hurts him as much as it helps the team. He runs so damned much that when he is expected to make a nice long pass, his legs die on him. It has to be hard to run and then make pin-point passes after the sprint.
I love Frankie. That being said, personally I thought he'd bring a lot of positives to the Crew defense and offense. I'm not quite sure if that really happened. Now, I'm not going to completely bash Frankie, because someone will somehow find a way to say something rude like: "Didn't you watch the whole season?" or other crap like that. But I just think Frankie is an overhyped player. His crosses aren't good, his tackles in the box can be reckless, and all-in-all sometimes it seems like he's a waste of space on the field. Though, then it bodes the question, who'd replace him? Well, I didn't say we should get rid of him, I just think he needs to work on some things in the offseason, unless he's not going to be on the Crew roster come next season. In that case, he can continue playing like he does right now. As for grading, it matters if you're comparing him to the other MLS defenders/midfielders, or the players on the Crew squad.
frankie needs to stay. period. was anyone else able to catch him pumping up the crowd in the tunnel after the game? he's great. the crowd loves him and he loves them right back.
Yeah, I caught that from inside the tunnel... it was great. He was walking into the locker room, and Jim Smith told him that we toss out our jerseys at the last home game and to get back out there. So that's when he went back out and pumped up the crowd. Definitely a cool moment to end on.
Well said. I counted 11 crosses by Hejduk in the Fire match. Two were dangerous, none got to a Crew player. Not acceptable at this level. Put another way, thank God it was APC crossing late in the DC game and not Hejduk. If not, we'd been out a week earlier.
His enthusiasm and energy are great, but he often worked himself out of position and had to foul to keep from getting beat. Same problem he had for the Nats. I'm not sure most opponets considered him a big offensive threat, but he made some inspiring runs. Unfortunetly, as mentioned, not much happened at the end of those runs. Getting turned upside down by Marco Itchyhairy in the box resulted in the PK that cost us the match. On a Hockey + or - scale - he was probably in the red. B- sounds right. I personally have rather kept Perez in retrospect. We needed an atttacking mid more than a right back this year.
keep frankie. who, on our defense would you keep before him. Clark? Williams? Denton? McCarty? You can't be serious. Maybe his crosses are not the greatest, but who would you rather have on the field that is on our roster? The fact is is that Frankie gets forward from the backline better than ANYONE that has ever had the crew uniform on and that he gets back extremely well too. I'll agree that he will never be confused with Zidane in the offensive third, but he is always an option in the attacking half, and always seems to be open. if he could just find the open man...
Hejduk and West should live together in the offseason, some place warm, and just spend hours and hours streaking down the right side and crossing balls into the penalty area. Hours and hours.
I like the idea of Hedjuk and West being bestest buddies and all, but I noticed that Hedjuk and West ALWAYS go to play the cross from deep in the corner. VERY PREDICTABLE! If they are going to spend hours and hours crossing, they also need to work on earlier crosses that send the ball diagonally before the defenders get set up. On Sunday, I thought that Frankie's crosses looked very dangerous and would have been easily handled by Crew forwards if they got through, but the crosses were made once the defense had set up. I also think working on a little combination play in the corner couldn't hurt either so they could play the sharp diagonal ball to an oncoming Paule or Martino.
I"m not a Crew fan, but I'll chime in based on what I've seen this season. Very hard worker, horrible crosser of the ball, decent defender, super athlete, tremendous stamina. Exactly what you thought he would be, as he is the same player with the Nats. If Frankie stayed on his side of the half line, he could be one of the better defenders in the league.
Frankie is something of an enigma, but the bottom line is that he very seldom gets beaten, and as a defender isn't that the point? Apparently not, because every discussion of him starts with how bad his crosses are. FWIW I think his value to an offense is not what he does as much as the fact that he gets there in the first place. He has to be accounted for by the defense and that's worth something. As he gets a little older, the problem will solve itself, and he'll stay at home more. In the meantime, I sure wouldn't let him go because of his passing. What I WOULD do is get somebody out there overlapping with him and off of him, as Paule did early on. Having him out there on an island attempting to connect with BMB just doesn't seem to pan out.
Keep him, if only for his stepover... On an unrelated note, my five year old did a cheeky backheel in his YMCA soccer game this saturday.
I tried to watch carefully on Sunday and it seemed that he ALWAYS wanted to take the ball deep and try a cross. Sometimes he had the overlap and held the ball. Sometimes he had the inside pass to Paule, KMart or Maze and kept the ball. It's true that the defense has to account for him BUT it'll be a token gesture if they know he won't make a decent cross if his life depended upon it. I think that a B- for the season was a fair rating for him.
I love Frankie Hejduk. He is the engine that every team needs. Crossing or not he would help any team in the league. Columbus is lucky to have him.
Okay, I'll stir the pot a little. - It was Hejduk that lost Wolyneck(sp) in the loss in NY/NJ, stuck his leg out for Itchyhairy to dive over and earn a penalty kick in the DC at Columbus tie. He was also involved in the sandwich with Williams yielding a PK in the last match. Arguably 3-6 points lost directly from something Hejduk did. Almost all the venom shot at Clark is that he adds nothing to the offense and how Hejduk was supposed to correct that. Is that not the case now? Daniel Torres played about the same way, just with less enthusiasm and determination, and inside the penalty box grabbed shirts instead of recklessly slide tackling. He was a bust. D/Mid Eric "The Dead" Denton has one more point (5 2G+1A) than Hejduk (4 4A) with only three more games. Dunseth had 4 points (1G+2A) with fewer minutes. - I think a B- is more than a fair grade...
The only thing better than the crossover move is that sit on the ball thing he did in the last game--now that was some good entertainment. It takes real skill to pull off a move like that with absolutely no one anywhere near you, real skill.