Sergiño Dest (loaned to PSV)

Roberto Carlos made a career on these low whipped crosses. They are very effective, when your team has aggressive forwards. They create chaos even if not aimed at anyone particular. Also, i disagree that Alba makes seeing crosses. Only time he looks for someone, it is when cutting back to Messi. Otherwise just random blast into the feet of defenders. Roberto can make a good final pass, but he almost never utilize this as he is very passive and passes back/sideways 99% of the time.

Even Alves who was the best of the best use to get stick for his crossing every now and then.

I'm not worried at all when it comes to Dest from what he's shown so far. He's only 20 in his first season with the Club in a stronger league, it is going to take some time for him to consistently nail that final pass.

I?ve actually been pleasantly surprised by how often he picks out a player in the penalty area. My only real concern with him is his first touch is often quite sloppy, and when pressed that causes problems in defence. Overall though, very encouraging. Step over, gets a yard on the defender, whipped low cross... it?s simply but very effective. Gives us a whole new dimension, albeit so far only when braithwaite plays, as he?s the only one consistently making that near post run.

Dest is class and still young..
Athletic, fast, good dribbling, good crossing, good combos.
We have been blessed.


P.s. whoever speaks badly of his crossing, needs to go back a few years and watch dani alves put aimless, out of target crosses every five minutes.

xXKonan said:

Even Alves who was the best of the best use to get stick for his crossing every now and then.

I'm not worried at all when it comes to Dest from what he's shown so far. He's only 20 in his first season with the Club in a stronger league, it is going to take some time for him to consistently nail that final pass.

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Crossing in general is tricky. You need to have some specific type of striker in order to make a crossing-based offense not seem a bit random. A lot of it is down to how the strikers position themselves, and how they dominate defenders.

If Madrid didn't have players like Ronaldo, Benzema, Bale in the box, all athletic, strong players who physically dominate defenders for fun, their crossing with Marcelo and Carvajal would've looked a lot more random.

Especially Ronaldo and Benzema. Ronaldo was A+ in terms of physical presence on crosses. Benzema very good also. When you have targets of that quality, of course your crosses look better.

Dani Alves forced the delivery a lot back in 2013 and 2014. Trying to pick up isolated targets without a great heading game. No wonder he misplaced so many crosses. Shouldn't have abused them anyway. Back then we had Messi, Alexis, Fabregas as threats in the box. The only way these guys scored from crosses is if it landed perfectly on their head and the defenders missed the markings by 10 meters.

When peak Suarez came, in 2015, Alves' crossing picked up unsurprisingly, because he wasn't forcing it that much.

JohnN said:

P.s. whoever speaks badly of his crossing, needs to go back a few years and watch dani alves put aimless, out of target crosses every five minutes.

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Absolutely. Alves' aimless crosses from the flank were where attacks went to die.

His balls over the top when he drifted in, however, were quite good because he was actually aiming at a target.

There is a 3% chance that Dest will surpass Alves. There. I said it.

Horatio said:

There is a 3% chance that Dest will surpass Alves. There. I said it.

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So, he'll become the best RB of all time in a close duel with Cafu? Close to zero chance. That's like saying there's a chance Pedri might surpass Xavi.

Dest will surpass Alves because I said so.

Joking aside, it's kinda funny reading MLS/Ussoccer posts and seeing guys wanting to move Dest up to RW/LB so they can play the likes of Bryan Reynolds and Reggie Cannon at RB in the national team and I'm thinking why the hell would you move our best RB by far out of position to play Cannon and Reynolds who aren't as good and Talented as Dest is and both playing far weaker leagues than Dest does.

It's like wanting to play a prime Alves out of position so you can play an unproven Martin Montoya. You don't play one of your best players out of position full time so you can play a guy that may or may not be good enough. All three of them have potential but Reggie Cannon is 22, while Dest and Reynolds are 20 and 19. One plays in Portugal, one in MLS and one in La Liga.

Horatio said:

There is a 3% chance that Dest will surpass Alves. There. I said it.

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Big






Sorry, fam.

I said 3% percent at least. 97% he wont. Geez
calm down. Its not unlikely he wont surpass him.

It's so weird when I see our RB doing feints and dribbles and using both legs and even has a correct shooting technique, I got so used to that Deulofeu type of one-dimensional playstyle from our right-backs from the last few years.

xXKonan said:

Dest will surpass Alves because I said so.

Joking aside, it's kinda funny reading MLS/Ussoccer posts and seeing guys wanting to move Dest up to RW/LB so they can play the likes of Bryan Reynolds and Reggie Cannon at RB in the national team and I'm thinking why the hell would you move our best RB by far out of position to play Cannon and Reynolds who aren't as good and Talented as Dest is and both playing far weaker leagues than Dest does.

It's like wanting to play a prime Alves out of position so you can play an unproven Martin Montoya. You don't play one of your best players out of position full time so you can play a guy that may or may not be good enough. All three of them have potential but Reggie Cannon is 22, while Dest and Reynolds are 20 and 19. One plays in Portugal, one in MLS and one in La Liga.

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Juande Ramos infiltrated their accounts.

There was a season that he moved Alves to RW to accommodate Ramos breaking through at RB.

There are also guys like Kyle Duncan and Julian Araujo, but as of right now the best RB for the National team is Dest even though we appear to have a pretty good roster of RB's for that spot finally instead of relying on the likes of Yedlin.

I can see the talent and Profile with Reynolds myself though. His profile reminds me a bit of Emerson, Athletic and Physical, and has some solid technical abilities where he can get forward with the ball and he has some great pace to him as well. I think he would suit Serie A pretty well if he can seal a move to either Roma or even Juventus.

But he's still a ways off from competing with Dest for a spot on the National team. He's only a year younger than Dest but MLS is the only league he's played in for a short amount of time, while the MLS isn't a complete joke as it once was he will still need to move abroad if he wants to improve even further.

Reggie Cannon is Dest's main competition at the moment, he's the oldest of the trio and while he's not as gifted as Dest in technical abilities I still like him quite a bit. He made the jump to Portugal with Boavista and has made himself a starter pretty quick, but the thing that really stinks is Boavista is going to be fighting relegation all season by the looks of it.

Yeah Alves crossing this and that.
Just because Dest managed some good crosses lately it doesn't make him immune to criticism.

Maybe I'm playing the devil?s advocate here. But I want Dest to be a difference maker against the best teams before I start hyping him to be our RB for the next 10 years.
The Adama Traore style of verticality without thought doesn't make you the best. Is Dest better than that? We shall see. I hope he succeeds.