TUKWILA, Wash. – When Seattle Sounders midfielder Nicolas Lodeiro faces off against Toronto FC forward Sebastian Giovinco in the MLS Cup final at BMO Field on Saturday (8 pm ET; FOX, UniMas in US | TSN1/3/4, RDS in Canada), it will be a matchup between two of Major League Soccer's very best at their respective roles.
Giovinco has been arguably MLS’ most dominant player the past two seasons, winning the league’s Landon Donovan MVP award last year and being widely considered the biggest ballot omission for this year’s honors. Lodeiro, meanwhile, has taken the league by storm since joining Seattle from Argentina's Boca Juniors in July and has continued his dominant run in the Audi 2016 MLS Cup playoffs, bagging four goals in Seattle’s five postseason games.
“That’s one of the most interesting storylines of this match,” Sounders head coach Brian Schmetzer told reporters on a Monday conference call, “Nico and Giovinco and their value for their respective teams.”
Giovinco and Lodeiro might very well be the league’s two hottest players at the moment, but they go about their business in very different ways.
“We’re completely different players,” Lodeiro said on Sunday. “The only thing that’s alike about us is that we’re short.”
Lodeiro is right about that. At 5-foot-7 and with Giovinco standing at an even smaller 5-foot-4, neither figures to get a call for a tryout with an NBA team anytime soon.
According to Sounders captain Brad Evans, however, that low center of gravity makes both players difficult to defend on the soccer pitch.
“[Giovinco] makes it difficult because he’s waist-height,” Evans said. “You get close and he spins you and he’s gone. He’s that good on the ball. …You just have to do the best you can. With a guy like that, a top player, what do you say about top players? You can’t stop them, really. It’s all about us at that point, keeping possession, making sure we finish our chances and put pressure on them.”
While both players can be considered jacks-of-all-trades to a certain degree, the stylistic contrasts between them are also apparent.
While Lodeiro has emerged as Seattle’s leading goalscorer during the postseason, his ability to set teammates up is still his calling card. Forward Jordan Morris has marveled at Lodeiro’s ability to pick out his runs with pinpoint passes from seemingly any spot on the field – a quality that has proven especially beneficial for Morris, as a forward whose best attribute is using his blistering pace to make runs behind opposing backlines.
Giovinco, meanwhile, is more of a pure goalscorer than his Uruguayan counterpart – although his 31 assists over the past two seasons are certainly nothing to sneeze at, either.
Player |
Goals+Assists per 90 |
Chances Created per 90 |
Shots per 90 |
Passes per 90 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Giovinco |
1.25 |
1.94 |
6.52 |
24.41 |
Lodeiro |
.89 |
2.67 |
2.56 |
58.00 |
As Schmetzer put it: “To me, the difference there is that Giovinco is more of a forward who can pass the ball. Nico is more of a midfielder who can score.”
Added Evans: “They see the game different than most. They’re deadly in small spaces and they pop up in different parts of the field. That makes it difficult. It’s a good system for him, but we also have a good system for Nico. You play to the strengths of your best players and I think both teams do that. And they’re game-changers. That’s the most important thing.”
Regardless, Seattle’s MLS Cup hopes might just hinge on just how much they can manage to bottle up Giovinco, just as TFC’s might hinge on to what degree they can neutralize Lodeiro.
Exactly how they’ll go about keying in on the dynamic Italian has been a key part of the Sounders’ preparation leading up to Saturday’s final, although Schmetzer says TFC’s other dangerous pieces – including forward Jozy Altidore and midfielder Michael Bradley – are far from lost on his squad as well.
“[Giovinco] is certainly a tremendous player. I don’t know how he got left [off the MVP ballot],” Schmetzer said. “He’s tremendous. But Jozy makes him a good player, Bradley makes him a good player, some of their other teammates make him a good player. It’s a team game. We’ll focus on the entire team and gain whatever edge we can on stopping them.
“Conversely, on our team, Nico’s a great player, but Ozzie [Alonso] makes him better, Roman [Torres] makes Ozzie better, Stefan [Frei] makes Roman better and down the line. So they have to prepare for our team too.”
