by mrt » Sat Aug 22, 2009 10:04 pm
A few years back, Tim Vickery (South American football corespondent) spoke glowingly of Lucas as a throwback to the traditional Brazillian, playmaking, central midfielder in the mould of Cerezo, Falcao and going further back Clodoaldo. He made the point that since winning the World Cup in '94 Brazil have, mainly, operated with two sitting central midfielders in front of the back four and asked the full backs to bomb forward and provide creativity. He hoped the emergence of Lucas and Arsenal's Denilson and a couple of others would herald a return to the free flowing Brazil teams of pre '94 with creative midfielders able to create and score themselves rather than cover for fullbacks.
Point is, Lucas didn't win player of the year in Brazil by making 5 yard sideways passes. He was creative and scored goals, albeit in a league where he had more time and space to work in. There is talent inside him, hopefully as he gains in confidence he'll be able to show it.
That said, can't get too excited about his International callup. From what I saw in the Confederations Cup Felipe Melo and Gilberto Silva were underwhelming, Ramirez was w@nk. Elano looked as good as anyone in their midfield and he was never consistently good enough for City, was he?
Agree with the earlier point about Lucas improving since his haircut. Perhaps if we could hold him down and shave the rest off, the league would be won by xmas.