Angel Is Clearly Hurting

By: Dave Martinez | May 3rd, 2008

For those watching Juan Pablo Angels early season performances, it has become painfully obvious that something terrible is going on. He looks slower, he didn’t line up for the free kick against TFC (which was netted by Van Den Bergh), he was rarely even a factor.

Yet, reading the sentiments of the fans from this past game, some have the audacity to point out his play as being “weak” or “soft.” Whether helpful or not, Juanpi is obviously playing hurt, so such critisism should be a moot point. In my opinion, his only job that against Toronto was to be a decoy, freeing up other players to find the net. When the free kick was drawn, which led to the Van Den Bergh goal, who did not think, including the crowd at TFC, that Angel would line up for the blast? Low and behold, its Magee and Van Den Bergh behind the ball.

If that doesn’t scream out PROBLEM, I don’t know what does. No knock on Magee or DVB mind you – its just that this would be an ideal situation for a healthy Angel to produce a cracker, top shelf. But it was not to be.

Before judging Angel, realize he is on the pitch with some type of injury. If there was a bit more transparency in this league with injury reports, maybe people wouldn’t jump to their own, more negative conclusions, and crucify a player for nothing. But since there isn’t, lets have a bit of consideration for a player who is putting himself out there, even if he is not at 100%.