DC United: Excitement is Building for 2008

Marcelo Gallardo Announced as DC United's Designated Player

Mike Martin

January 29, 2008

Marcelo Gallardo (center) with United owners Will Chang (right) and Victor McFarlane

Marcelo Gallardo (center) with United owners Will Chang (right) and Victor McFarlane
Photo: Tony Quinn

No doubt DC United has started off 2008 with a bang as the team has had a whirlwind week of big names coming out of South America, but as promising as those players are, they pale in comparison to Marcelo Gallardo who was announced today as the clubs first Designated Player.

Washington, D.C. "We are pleased to have such a talented and distinguished player joining our club," said United General Manager Dave Kasper. "Marcelo has had tremendous success at both the domestic and international levels, and we look forward to his future contributions to D.C. United."

Those future contributions Kasper alluded to may well make the Argentine international playmaker turn out to be biggest signing in United history, if he fulfills the expectation that he is the key to DC United breaking through on the international stage as well as adding a few more MLS trophies to the case. Obviously, Marco Etcheverry is the gold standard he’ll be measured against, but more on that later.

Marcelo Gallardo is a world class playermaker with an impressive resume who just turned 32. On the international stage, he played on World Cup teams for Argentina in 1998 and 2002 and was part of the silver medal winning side in the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. At the Club level, he’s led River Plate to league championships five times as recently as 2004 and a Copa Libertadores title in 1996, and he led Monaco to championships in 2000, when he was named French footballer of the year, and in 2003.

Clearly, United is expecting Gallardo to give them the class and skill needed to realistically challenge for international glory in Concacaf and South American competitions given his international stature. As well as return United to the pinnacle of MLS success by avoiding the troubling collapses in the playoffs that have plagued the team the last three years.

Gallardo’s reputation has been tarnished a bit recently as he fell out of favor with the coach of his latest team, Paris St-Germain of the French league, but there’s never been any doubt about his silky skills and extraordinary technical ability. Let go on a free transfer, and turning down offers in Europe and South America, he’s coming to America eager to show what he can do. Coach Tommy Soehn noted that his troubles and lack of playing time in Paris if anything have made him more "hungry" to prove himself and succeed in MLS according to Steve Goff's blog from the Washington Post.

With a guaranteed contract for the next two years at an alleged 1.3 million per season, as the team’s DP, he only counts as 400K against MLS’s draconian 2.3 million dollar salary cap.


The Devil and the Doll

Now let the games begin! Yep, that’s right I’ve got no shame whatsoever. El Muneco hasn’t played a single minute and I’m already comparing him to the legendary El Diablo. Absolute blasphemy, but I just can’t help myself as I’m as excited as the team is to see this guy in the Black and Red this season.

Seriously, it’s inevitable that DC United playmakers are compared with Marco anyway, so we might as well start the ball rolling right now as Gallardo’s signing today is eerily reminiscent of those heady days in 1996 when Marco was announced as the team’s third allocated player.

El Diablo was already a legend in South America known for ridiculous skills and famous for almost single-handedly beating Brazil in La Paz, in a rare World Cup qualifying loss for the Samba Boys in 1993, that helped propel Bolivia to the World Cup the next year. However, he was also the guy who was red carded 14 minutes into that World Cup, and had washed out of Spanish second division, and who had suffered a horrific knee injury that had him rumored to be a shadow of his former self.

With barely any internet, and certainly no youtube videos in those dark ages, you really had very little first hand knowledge of anyone. So there was that sense of excitement in anticpation of Marco who had truly mythic skills, but also no avoiding the trepidation about his infamous temper and damaged wheels. Gallardo brings a little bit of this as well. His skills are without question, but he hasn’t played much in the past year and clashes with a coach are something no team likes to hear.

However, all that said, Marco’s accomplishments in MLS and his incomparable character speak for themselves and Gallardo already seems to be taking the high road as well. He could easily have skipped the first practice or dogged it as he’d just flown in, it was freezing cold, and he wasn’t even formally signed yet, but he didn’t miss a second. He played and I think played well. He also had a chance to assert himself at the press conference today when asked about his preferences in style of play and tactics, yet he deferred to the coach and made it clear that Soehn was to make such decisions.

They are also extremely similar players. Both look to set up others with pinpoint passing and astonishing field awareness. They do demand the ball to control play with deft touches and sublime skills, yet are always seeking to unbalance the other team with stunning imagination in the attack. Both are also merciless to defend at dead ball situations as they each can put the ball right on someone else’s head, or into the back of the net themselves. To put it simply, they excel at making the whole team better.

Which is why I believe Gallardo will be even more successful with DC United than Gomez was despite his trophies and honors as well as unquestioned heart and skill. No disrespect to Gomez intended at all. In a lot of ways Gomez was exceptional for United for his heart and timely scoring in crunch time was a big reason United had any presence at all in big games. But, his style of playmaking was less about making others greater and more about setting up himself.

Which is not to say he was selfish, just different. Gomez’ runs often freed himself for the shot instead of setting up others which often led to a good defense or one key injury from derailing United’s hopes. His passes were less to unlock a defense and more to shred it by getting the ball back and scoring himself. And it worked, Gomez had an incredible 44 goals out of the midfield along with 29 assists in his three and half years here. Marco couldn’t touch that kind of scoring with a mere 20 goals in his first three and half years. Yet Marco’s 60+ assists over the same time period is just as remarkable and might be why he led the team to the MLS Cup every one of those years winning two of them, plus a Supporter’s Shield, an Open Cup, a Concacaf Cup, and the Inter-American Cup.

Gallardo is that type of player, much more the set up guy than the scorer, and with box scorers like Emilio and Niell to set up along with a rejuvenated Moreno and Fred to spread the field and give him room, it’s not a stretch to think DC United can legitimately expect some international success in Mexico or South America as well as MLS trophies if the team gels and stays reasonably healthy.

United has the Concacaf Cup starting in March, Superliga this Summer, Concacaf Champions league starting this fall, maybe Copa SUdamericana too. Then there’s the Open Cup, Supporter’s Shield, and MLS Cup. That’s six or seven trophies that are winnable with the talent United has collected. Obviously, there’s a long way to go, and lots of things can scuttle a team in MLS, but Gallardo just gives you that tingly feeling that a return to the unprecedented success of those early Marco teams might well be right at our finger tips.

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