- Jan 14, 2004
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- #1
During the summer Tottenham set up an affiliation with Brazilian club Internacional and both before and after this partnership was set up we were linked with U21 midfielder Sandro.
According to ITK after the transfer window a deal is now in place for Sandro to move to Spurs in the January window and many people were getting excited at the prospect of having a Brazilian midfielder in our team to potentially play alongside Palacios.
He has only had a very brief career in Brazil although reports had been very positive and he was recently called up into the full Brazil squad for the qualifiers last month. This enough was cause for excitement, although I personally had never seen him play.
Yesterday evening I was fortunate enough to be flicking through the channels on my TV and stumbled onto the Internacional v. Univ de Chile on SportItalia about half an hour in, so I settled down with interest to watch the game and particularly the performance of Sandro.
Initially, I'll be honest, I was underwhelmed. I knew he was a defensive midfielder but in my head I imagined something along the lines of Felipe Melo or a Palacios type. In reality this was not the case. It took quite a while for him to even be involved in the game as he was playing extremely deep and the game was all happening in front of him as Internacional were a goal down and pushing for an equaliser. It seemed that the full backs had pushed up very high and Sandro had dropped deep, almost exclusively in his own half, to help cover with the centre backs.
He is a big guy, and has a sort of loping languid style and a slightly odd gait. Not as big as Huddlestone and certainly not as immobile, but he does have a certain physical presence which didn't seem to be put to much use.
After a period of time when it seemed he hadn't done a lot, Univ broke, got the ball to the right winger and tried to counter. Off sets Sandro from his defensive position in pursuit of the winger. He was always a metre behind the winger and looked kind of awkward running, but managed to just about keep up with him and then he went to ground with a seemingly last ditch sliding tackle. I almost closed my eyes expecting to see a rash foul as it seemed he was too far behind the player to get near the ball, only to be surprised when a 'Bobby Mooresque' challenge to be perfectly excecuted and Sandro bouncing back to his feet with the ball stuck to his right boot.
I thought to myself, that was a great challenge if a little lucky, if he had been slightly out he would have been in trouble. As it was he probably stopped a goalscoring opportunity. I was wrong. Luck didn't have much to do with it as was evident about 3 minutes later when on the halfway line on the left side of the pitch comes a clattering challenge from Sandro, again perfectly timed and again coming out with the ball. A few minutes after this a cross field ball was played into the Internacional box and the Univ forward was in a good position. Sandro had absolutely no right to get to the ball, but staying on his feet inside the box he managed to get his body across the opposing player, nip his foot in and get the ball he then turned on a sixpence the opposite way to his momentum was taking him and left the opposing player for dead. It was such Ledley style defending. He actually made about 6 or 7 real challenges, taking the ball away from his opponent (as oppose to nipping in ahead of them or intercepting/blocking). This boy can tackle!
Then Inter scored. Univ were now looking to get the ball up the field more often and be more of an attacking threat as oppose to being very defensive and holding the lead as before. It became apparent that Sandro's positioning was extremely good. He had an uncanny nack of always being able to step forward from his deep position and intercept balls coming into the midfield. He was underneath every goalkick and winning headers in the middle of the pitch and every time one of his team mates drifted from their position he had the gap marshalled. He appeared to have the defensive awareness of a veteran player rather than a kid just starting his career.
Not only that but he was always talking, pointing, telling his team-mates where to go and they actually seemed to listen to him. I don't think he was the captain, but he was certainly the one in control on the pitch.
He was very comfortable on the ball, and was very tidy when passing. In the 60 minutes of football I saw he didn't once try an elaborate creative pass from midfield, but kept the ball ticking over. He did occassionally get forward, albeit with the ball still ahead of him. He broke into the box late and had a full stretch diving header whistle about a foot wide of the post. Another occassion the ball rebounded out from the box and broke to Sandro who rifled a right-footed shot from 10 yards out which hit the Univ defender flush in the face and knocked him out cold. Not long after the goal, he was up supporting the play as Inter looked for a winner, he received the ball and with one simple step over shifted his body position, cut between two defenders to the edge of the box and whipped in a great cross which really should have been buried by the forward.
In short, he is primarily a defensive player. If he plays in the centre with Palacios expect him to be the deeper of the two and Palacios moving forward hassling and harrying the opposition. Some Spurs fans will likely get frustrated by his seemingly languid movement at first but I'm sure his defensive qualities will win them over. It may result in our central midfield being a little short on the creative side (although Sandro may well possess great passing ability that just wasn't evident in the 60 minutes I watched, but I would have thought chasing the game he would have been more creative if that was in his game). Having said that it would definitely help the likes of Modric and Lennon to have more freedom and we would be able to effectively play 4-4-2 without sometimes getting ripped through the middle.
He was definitely a class act, who of course will take some time to adjust to the English game although his maturity on the pitch should help him adapt quickly. I'll let you lot decide if a defensive rather creative player is the best partner for Palacios in midfield.
According to ITK after the transfer window a deal is now in place for Sandro to move to Spurs in the January window and many people were getting excited at the prospect of having a Brazilian midfielder in our team to potentially play alongside Palacios.
He has only had a very brief career in Brazil although reports had been very positive and he was recently called up into the full Brazil squad for the qualifiers last month. This enough was cause for excitement, although I personally had never seen him play.
Yesterday evening I was fortunate enough to be flicking through the channels on my TV and stumbled onto the Internacional v. Univ de Chile on SportItalia about half an hour in, so I settled down with interest to watch the game and particularly the performance of Sandro.
Initially, I'll be honest, I was underwhelmed. I knew he was a defensive midfielder but in my head I imagined something along the lines of Felipe Melo or a Palacios type. In reality this was not the case. It took quite a while for him to even be involved in the game as he was playing extremely deep and the game was all happening in front of him as Internacional were a goal down and pushing for an equaliser. It seemed that the full backs had pushed up very high and Sandro had dropped deep, almost exclusively in his own half, to help cover with the centre backs.
He is a big guy, and has a sort of loping languid style and a slightly odd gait. Not as big as Huddlestone and certainly not as immobile, but he does have a certain physical presence which didn't seem to be put to much use.
After a period of time when it seemed he hadn't done a lot, Univ broke, got the ball to the right winger and tried to counter. Off sets Sandro from his defensive position in pursuit of the winger. He was always a metre behind the winger and looked kind of awkward running, but managed to just about keep up with him and then he went to ground with a seemingly last ditch sliding tackle. I almost closed my eyes expecting to see a rash foul as it seemed he was too far behind the player to get near the ball, only to be surprised when a 'Bobby Mooresque' challenge to be perfectly excecuted and Sandro bouncing back to his feet with the ball stuck to his right boot.
I thought to myself, that was a great challenge if a little lucky, if he had been slightly out he would have been in trouble. As it was he probably stopped a goalscoring opportunity. I was wrong. Luck didn't have much to do with it as was evident about 3 minutes later when on the halfway line on the left side of the pitch comes a clattering challenge from Sandro, again perfectly timed and again coming out with the ball. A few minutes after this a cross field ball was played into the Internacional box and the Univ forward was in a good position. Sandro had absolutely no right to get to the ball, but staying on his feet inside the box he managed to get his body across the opposing player, nip his foot in and get the ball he then turned on a sixpence the opposite way to his momentum was taking him and left the opposing player for dead. It was such Ledley style defending. He actually made about 6 or 7 real challenges, taking the ball away from his opponent (as oppose to nipping in ahead of them or intercepting/blocking). This boy can tackle!
Then Inter scored. Univ were now looking to get the ball up the field more often and be more of an attacking threat as oppose to being very defensive and holding the lead as before. It became apparent that Sandro's positioning was extremely good. He had an uncanny nack of always being able to step forward from his deep position and intercept balls coming into the midfield. He was underneath every goalkick and winning headers in the middle of the pitch and every time one of his team mates drifted from their position he had the gap marshalled. He appeared to have the defensive awareness of a veteran player rather than a kid just starting his career.
Not only that but he was always talking, pointing, telling his team-mates where to go and they actually seemed to listen to him. I don't think he was the captain, but he was certainly the one in control on the pitch.
He was very comfortable on the ball, and was very tidy when passing. In the 60 minutes of football I saw he didn't once try an elaborate creative pass from midfield, but kept the ball ticking over. He did occassionally get forward, albeit with the ball still ahead of him. He broke into the box late and had a full stretch diving header whistle about a foot wide of the post. Another occassion the ball rebounded out from the box and broke to Sandro who rifled a right-footed shot from 10 yards out which hit the Univ defender flush in the face and knocked him out cold. Not long after the goal, he was up supporting the play as Inter looked for a winner, he received the ball and with one simple step over shifted his body position, cut between two defenders to the edge of the box and whipped in a great cross which really should have been buried by the forward.
In short, he is primarily a defensive player. If he plays in the centre with Palacios expect him to be the deeper of the two and Palacios moving forward hassling and harrying the opposition. Some Spurs fans will likely get frustrated by his seemingly languid movement at first but I'm sure his defensive qualities will win them over. It may result in our central midfield being a little short on the creative side (although Sandro may well possess great passing ability that just wasn't evident in the 60 minutes I watched, but I would have thought chasing the game he would have been more creative if that was in his game). Having said that it would definitely help the likes of Modric and Lennon to have more freedom and we would be able to effectively play 4-4-2 without sometimes getting ripped through the middle.
He was definitely a class act, who of course will take some time to adjust to the English game although his maturity on the pitch should help him adapt quickly. I'll let you lot decide if a defensive rather creative player is the best partner for Palacios in midfield.
