Keaton has been getting some attention lately. I’ve seen a couple possibly hyperbolic quotes about him. Here’s an example:

Dome Torrent compared #NYCFC‘s Keaton Parks to Bayern’s Thiago Alcantara today:



“Keaton has special qualities, he’s never nervous. He’s not pressured. Sometimes you have to say to them ‘be careful.’ He plays the same way in our 18-yard box, Thiago Alcantara played the same way.” — Tom Bogert (@tombogert) September 19, 2019

I don’t know Thiago’s game real well, but I’m gonna go out on a limb and say that was a compliment. I actually also got a request from a reader (h/t to @justinpaul10) for me to take a look at Parks. I wasn’t planning on doing it this soon, but it suddenly seemed timely.

Anyway, I went through the usual process. I watched his most recent two games (actually three [Toronto, SJ, Dallas] this time – due to technical difficulties I could only watch the first half of NYCFC v. FCD) very carefully and tried to draw some conclusions. As usual, I know two or three games isn’t the longest, best sample size, but since I have a real job and can’t spend all my free time watching soccer…that’s the deal.

Hardcore NYCFC fans…feel free to correct me if you feel I screwed anything up. Now, to the tape.

Strengths

Lazy Competence

I loved watching Berba – woulda smoked a cigarette on the field if they’d let him 😂

This may be a strange comp, but at times Keaton reminds me of Dimitar Berbatov. Berba used to get criticized because he looked lazy when the reality was he was so skillful he made everything look simple. Parks isn’t as skillful as Berbatov, but he does make things look easy. He’s super composed, controls the ball well, and then plays a nice pass (his passes are very pleasing to the eye for some reason too).

There’s something soothing about the way Keaton brings the ball down, passes, moves, receives it back, and gets into space.

Draws players in and then plays a non-obvious pass forward.

Intelligent

Parks reads the game very well. He is constantly floating into empty space to receive the ball. He also sees the next pass from the opponent well. He’s not a great defender, but he’s in the way a lot because he sees where the play is headed.

Sniffs out this play and blocks the pass. NYCFC is away on a counter that nearly results in a goal.

Love this foul. Remember Roldan not taking a foul on the Uruguay goal? Parks wipes him out and takes the yellow.

His intelligence also manifests itself in the way that he combines with his teammates. One of the hallmarks of his game is the way he passes and immediately moves to make himself available for the return pass. Reminiscent of some very good central midfielders.

Takes space, plays the ball forward, and looks to combine. Teammate doesn’t see the run/play the pass.

Lastly, he also uses his body deceptively to make space for himself. I can’t even always tell exactly what he’s doing, but something about his movements confuses defenders enough that it buys him space to keep possession, play a pass, etc.

Parks is good at feinting with his body to make space for himself

Passing

I’ve seen many a halftime interview with managers where that manager says, “We need to move the ball faster.” Keaton doesn’t have a problem with this. He keeps the ball moving and plays nice, line-splitting passes with regularity.

Here Parks wins the ball and plays a nice pass through a tight window to start a NYCFC attack.

Guess who can hit that diagonal ball?

Excellent composure at the top of his own box. Finds a nice line-splitting outlet ball.

Nice pass

Getting Forward

I mentioned earlier that Keaton likes to pass and move. This semi-frequently turned into him being in and around the box. The goal against San Jose:

Pounces on a loose ball and gets involved in the attack. Pretty good shot that forces the keeper to make a save.

That’s the only goal he’s scored this year, but he was involved in multiple dangerous situations over these three games. It got to the point where I was getting irritated at his teammates for not giving him the ball when he was an option. The way he was building rhythm and getting the ball circulating was enjoyable to watch.

Room to Improve

Now…about that defense

This might ruffle some feathers, but the player Parks reminds me the most of is…Michael Bradley. The way Parks plays defense is very similar. His goal mostly is to hang around the middle of the field and block off passes. He does this pretty well. However, when he gets into physical confrontations or situations where he has to sprint and cover…he’s in trouble. Here’s a bunch of examples:

This is going to look familiar to USMNT fans. Parks loses his man and can’t catch up. Play was offside, but it could easily have been a goal. (lol – this happened to Bradley like 8 minutes later)

Trot, trot, trot. Hey, that guy is gonna shoot. He missed. Sweet. Trots up-field.

Not exactly making up ground here

Not an aggressive defender. Looks like he has at least one opportunity to challenge/poke the ball away and hesitates.

Physicality

Parks needs to get more aggressive. He’s 6’4″ and rarely wins a header . (I’ll take the L on this one. I didn’t see many headers in the games I watched, but a couple people have reached out to disagree on this point. He’s well above average [97th percentile apparently] for center mids in winning headers.) When he gets into a 50/50 situation, more often than not the other guy comes away with it. Some time in the weight room might help, but how much of it is personality? I’m firmly convinced that Darlington Nagbe could have been the best US player of all time if he had the “killer” disposition of someone like Clint Dempsey. How much can Parks improve on this?

Not aggressive here. Doesn’t look like much of a “ball winner”

Not a good on ball defender.

Where does this leave us?

He looks like a set in stone January call up to me. If Berhalter is set on having a “positional hub” style midfielder (credit to Shawn Brooks for that term btw – he’s worth a follow on Twitter) in the team, then Parks is a great fit.

The problem is the same as it is with all the other guys. The defense. Bradley, Trapp, Yueill, Parks, Durkin someday – they all need a defensive helper partnered with them in midfield. Berhalter used to do this in Columbus – Tchani/Artur were almost always there to help out Trapp, but he hasn’t done it as much with the US. McKennie doesn’t look like he’s a strong enough defender to fill this role, but maybe others are. (Is this the spot Morales was trying out for last camp?)

I would definitely like to see Parks involved with the USMNT in the near future. He looks like a contender to Bradley’s throne. My ultimate hope is that Tyler Adams gets healthy and shows he can do the possession job well enough to fill the role PLUS be an excellent defender. But if we are going to keep the role as is…Parks should get a shot. Time will tell.

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