I feel like I'm in a parallel universe right now. You see, I've spent all year in a lonely place called the Nelson Valdez bandwagon. A place where people mocked you at games for wearing his jersey, where they counter every argument about his leadership and skills with "he can't score! Seattle should cut him! He's a waste of a DP!" Now... I'm hearing people all over the stadium people singing the Nelson Valdez gospel, suddenly I'm no longer crazy, suddenly people are acknowledging just how good Valdez actually is and how good he can be for this team.
My biggest criticism of Schmetzer is his insistence on starting CMs in attacking roles, and I've made it very clear that I thought Seattle should start Valdez or another forward up top. Guys who can make dangerous runs that open up space for and take pressure off an often suffocated Jordan Morris. This wasn't a criticism of Roldan, Ivanschitz or Flacco, because all of these guys can play in the attacking midfield, the criticism was playing more than one of them at a time, putting more and more pressure on Morris to not only score goals but also hold the ball up in the attacking third.
I'm not one to sit here and say I was right because it's only one game... but It doesn't come as a surprise to me that Seattle's best game since losing Clint Dempsey, comes from the very line up I've been asking for since Dempsey went down. Nelson Valdez has flaws as a player, but the man is always making the correct runs, wins the ball and distributes it better than any other player currently available. I hope tonight opens the door a little further for Valdez, because I honestly believe Valdez is the key to winning an MLS Cup. I could seriously go on and on about Valdez from a metric standpoint, how he's a top 5 CF in MLS if you remove his goal-scoring struggles, but It isn't time for that yet... there are still games to played, there is still a chance for Valdez to continue proving his detractors wrong.
