ASN: Darlington Nagbe’s Sport Has Taken Off at Key Time

After struggling to search out the right place for his star midfielder, Caleb Porter has positioned Darlington Nagbe in a box-to-box central midfield position. The transfer has helped Portland attain MLS Cup.

BY

Brian Sciaretta

Posted
December 04, 2015
12:30 PM

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ONE OF THE MAJOR THEMES of the 2015 Main League Soccer season might be on full show Sunday throughout MLS Cup: the success of groups which have largely elected to construct with U.S. coaches and U.S. expertise.

On one facet might be host Columbus Crew, headed by Gregg Berhalter and that includes rising stars like Ethan Finlay and Wil Trapp. On the opposite would be the visiting Portland Timbers, led by Caleb Porter and the league’s latest—and maybe most intriguing—American participant.

Darlington Nagbe, who obtained his U.S. citizenship in September and his first U.S. call-up final month, had previous proven flashes of his potential since being drafted second total in 2011. However within the second half of this season, with Porter implementing a tactical swap, Nagbe has seen his recreation really take off.

“I’ve tried to float him wide where he’s not really wide,” Porter instructed American Soccer Now. “I’ve tried him because the No. 10, however he appears to generally not discover area or get freed up there.

“But at D-mid, almost a No. 8, box-to-box mid, it seems like he came to life. I always worried that if we played him there, we’d be too light and wouldn’t be defensively balanced enough, but funny enough, he was winning balls through his athleticism and his ability to read the game and positioning. But the biggest thing is that he was just getting on the ball all the time. That is what he ultimately wants to do.”

It was additionally what Porter wished Nagbe to do, and it had been a very long time coming. Porter had coached Nagbe in faculty at Akron. He’d coached him with Portland with 2013.

However regardless of all of that, he hadn’t been capable of finding out the place, precisely, Nagbe’s greatest place on the sector lay. Now, with Portland having misplaced solely as soon as since Sept. 20, he believes that he has.

Nagbe, 25, agrees.

“I think that role puts me into a position where I can get more touches with the ball and help dictate the play a little bit more as opposed to the wing,” he stated. “When you’re not touching the ball, you’re not going to enjoy it as much. My touches have grown, so my confidence has grown even more.”

In the long run, it was a place that had been in his blood all alongside: Whereas Nagbe denies its connection to his positional swap, his father, Joe, had been a star box-to-box mid for the Liberian nationwide group for greater than a decade.

Nagbe was himself born in Liberia as a civil struggle broke out and ripped via the nation. He would ultimately flee together with his mom and brother to a refugee camp in Sierra Leone earlier than they have been capable of rejoin Darlington’s father, who was taking part in in France on the time for SAS Epinal. Joe would go on to play for golf equipment similar to OGC Good, Lugano, and PAOK Thessaloniki, and Darlington in time would develop comparable ambitions.

“Growing up in a different country where soccer is the biggest sport, it’s a different experience,” Nagbe stated. “It’s a sport that’s played at school, at lunch, at recess, before school, after school. You get that sense of wanting to be a professional player.”

However whereas Nagbe’s roots within the recreation date again to his time abroad, his development primarily passed off in Ohio, the place his household moved for good in 2001. The one fixed in a life full of adjusting nations, languages and cultures was soccer.

“When we first moved here we spoke English, but it’s different coming here and going to school,” Nagbe stated. “There is slang, but you don’t really catch on to it and you can’t understand everything. But just like anywhere around the world, when you roll the ball out there, it’s just fun. You get back to doing what you know and what’s natural. Once that happened, my brother and I finally felt at home. It was just something to look forward to every single day.”

On a recruiting journey for Akron, Porter first noticed Nagbe as an early teenager whereas taking part in for the Cleveland Internationals. Porter was blown away, he stated, from the minute he noticed Nagbe heat up.

This weekend presents one other defining second for the long-lasting duo, which in 2010 helped Akron to its first nationwide title and now may have an opportunity to raise Portland to its first main trophy. However it could not even be the largest certainly one of 2015 for Nagbe, who made his U.S. debut towards St. Vincent and the Grenadines in america’ first 2018 World Cup qualifier.

“It definitely adds confidence to you when the coach said he’s looking to bring in new talented players and you’re one of the guys he thought of to bring into the team,” Nagbe stated. “It’s definitely a huge compliment. Hopefully there are more and more chances to come.”

Porter, who is aware of Nagbe as a participant higher than anybody, recalled how simply he raised his recreation when shifting from the Internationals to Akron to, finally, Portland. And the coach believes that the problem of the nationwide group will solely result in the following stage in Nagbe’s growth.

“One of the reasons why I was so excited to see Darlington getting an opportunity with the national team is that certain players will only make jump if they are in an environment that will challenge them to raise their game,” Porter stated. “Darlington is a kind of gamers the place, regardless of the extent, he has the athleticism and most significantly the technical velocity and the tactical capability to leap to any stage.

“I firmly believe that tomorrow if you threw him in a training session with Barcelona that he be able to fit in no problem. Would he be the best player? No. But would he be out of place technically and tactically? No. He would raise his game.

“That is what Darlington does.”