Welcoming Martín Cáceres

By: Isaiah | June 7th, 2008

We have a new South American central defender who is known for his tenacity and crazy ass hair. And no, this isn’t a flashback to last year. I’m talking about Uruguayan international Martín Cáceres, who has joined from Villarreal (though you’ll remember him from Recreativo Huelva last year, where he was out on loan) in a deal worth €16.5million. Cáceres’ contract is for 4 years, running out in June 2012, and has a buyout clause of €50million.

But what of this man? Who is he? Where does he hail from? What’s his sign? Well, here are all the facts:

José Martín Cáceres is 21, born and raised in Montevideo, stands at 6′0″ (183cm), is a Pisces, and has crazyass hair. He’s known for his hard defending and a couple of headed goals, a couple of which can be seen here. Note his hard challenge on Messi…

Because he’s only played one year in Europe, it’s hard to judge his durability and his true skill, but from all accounts he’s a fantastic player with one hell of an upside. [I'll admit here that I didn't note him specifically in the Recre match this year; neither did Kevin, who wrote the review here. Cáceres only participated in our 3-0 home smashing of Recre, not the 2-2 draw at the Nuevo Colombino, so that's why the previous sentence appears in the singular, even though we obviously played them twice.] With all this talk about how good he is, I’m excited to see how he’ll do on the pitch. He’s not a jersey-selling signing, but rather a for-the-future defensive stalwart signing, which definitely makes me very, very happy.

Because I can’t truly speak about his positives (both of his goals for Recre were game winners, which is pretty great), I’ll focus on the negatives, though that in no way signals that I am against this signing. We needed another central defender and we got one that was being pursued, if only vaguely, by several other major clubs, so we can consider ourselves to on the track. As a 21-year old, Cáceres brings potential to the table, but can’t be considered an automatic starter at this point, even with the lack of depth at the position. He’ll take time to adapt to the situation, to the pressure, and to the new tactics in a way that an older, more experienced player might not. That means we’ll more than likely see a starting lineup of Marquez and Puyol to begin the season, which isn’t something I’m particularly sad about, but which does suggest that Cáceres better have his ego in check before stepping on to the field.

I doubt that Guardiola will have any issues keeping Cáceres off the field if he doesn’t think the kid is ready to play 90 minutes every game, so that’s a positive (Rijkaard would plug him in and do a trial-by-fire kind of thing, I’m pretty sure). If he’s as impetuous as some have said and often caught out of position because he’s being too aggressive, Guardiola will be forced to keep him off the field until he learns the correct positioning. Puyol can handle anything short of a thermonuclear warhead thrown at him, but even El Capitan Valiente sometimes needs backup. Because of Barcelona’s attacking capabilities (see above-mentioned WMD for defensive destruction capabilities), Cáceres won’t be needed to attack as much as he was by Recre. However, let’s get his head up there for corners, where we’ll still need him, full of mighty mites as our front line is.

Another potential negative is his aggression. In the video I linked before the jump, there were several in-the-box tackles that will be called penalties when they’re committed in Valdes’ box. That’s just how it’s gone the last year and our defense has to adapt to that.* Over-aggression leads to penalties, leads to draws and losses, leads to more pressure, leads to more penalties, etc. Cáceres has to keep himself in check and learn from Puyol when to kill an opponent. Not with kindness, but rather with the hatchet. Yellows aren’t bad as Milito taught us; in fact, they’re Deco’s best friend. It’s just that accumulating them in stupid circumstances (see Deco; Eto’o) is not a good idea. So calm down, son, and let’s play ball for real. You are surrounded by world class players; learn from them and you’ll be a star.

*I’m not suggesting a conspiracy, but that’s how it was this last year and I don’t expect that to change next year. Our defense was constantly off balance because of midfield issues and for at least the first third of next season, I expect the penalties to continue at the regular pace we had as Keita and company settle in.