Healthy and sharp, Santos fulfilling promise
The joke was leveled as much at the coaching staff as at the player, as Jim Curtin relayed it. For all the times he and his fellow Union coaches had spoken so hopefully about Sergio Santos in 2019, the underlying numbers just didn’t compute.
In the regular season, Santos started just five times, about one for each of the injuries that caused him to miss games. Add in one U.S. Open Cup nod and starts in both playoff games, and Santos’ debut season amounted to merely 900 minutes in all competitions. But the flashes of brilliance shown in that limited time testified to what a weapon he would be, if only the Union could get him healthy.
Sporting Kansas City can attest to what Santos can do after he blitzed them Thursday night with two goals and a secondary assist in a 15-minute first half span en route to a 3-1 Union victory in the MLS Is Back quarterfinals.
“You saw tonight just how much he can change a game,” Curtin said afterward. “You can’t teach speed. You can’t teach decision-making on breakaways. And his ability to stretch a defense is really good. … The goals that he created, the goals that he scored, (I’m) really happy for him.”
Whether it’s the increased run of games or greater familiarity with a league notorious for an acclimation period for even the most high-profile signings, Santos is settling in. In all competitions last year, he had four goals and two assists. He’s matched those figures this delayed season in roughly a third of the time (383 minutes). He’s started four straight games, tying the longest stretch of starts he had last season, and has six starts in 2020, exceeding his 2019 MLS tally.
Whereas last year, Curtin had to use his imagination to extrapolate what Santos could do – what if the brace against New England happened all the time? What if the influence he had on the playoff win over New York Red Bulls was commonplace? – this season, he only needs to run the highlight reel.
While there was occasional fan frustration as to Santos’s fitness struggles, you can see why the Union spent good money to acquire him from Chilean club Audax Italiano last offseason. You’d be hard-pressed to sculpt a better complement to Kacper Przybylko in this system. Size, skill on the ball, tenacity to win it back, finishing ability outside the box, speed to burn – Santos’s skillset is tantalizing, which made his inability to get on the field that much more disappointing last year.
Now, with Curtin moving away the 4-2-3-1 formation in all instances that don’t involve Ilsinho and embracing a full-time twoforward look, Santos is the perfect second forward off the shoulder of either Przybylko or Andrew Wooten. He can stretch defenses horizontally from touchline to touchline and possesses the speed to force defenses back and open pockets of space for midfielders to operate.
On Jamiro Monteiro’s opener Thursday, Santos had the vision and skill to spot Alejandro Bedoya’s looping run that originated 50 yards deep. The counter attacking goal off a free kick in the 26th minute was unadulterated power, Santos taking two touches and bounding past a torched SKC backline. But the presence of mind to slow his heartbeat and delicately chip Tim Melia showed Santos’s full array.
“I went with my instinct and what we work on in training,” Santos said through a translator. “When I saw the opportunity, I took it to take the breakaway. And I tried to finish it off the best that I could.”
“The touch that he makes on the goal where it’s about a 70-yard run, those are a lot harder than people recognize,” Curtin said. “When you’re that far from goal, what he did really well is take a really big first touch that let him be able to open up his legs and separate, and then to combine the speed that he has and the power, but then also the finesse to slow your body down, make the right decision and just dink it over the goalkeeper is a really special finish.”
The capper in the 39th owed to Brenden Aaronson’s brilliant vision to slide-rule a 30-yard, crossfield ball through the gap. But that magisterial feed was only paid off because of Santos making the perfect run, knowing what he wanted to do before the ball got to him and flawlessly tapping home a onetimed shot.
“Sergio’s commitment to get in the box is always there,” Aaronson said. “I think it’s just finding him. He made a great run to the back post and it was up to me to find him. I think that’s my role on the team and I want to get assists for them and try to help out as much as I can scoring goals. And that’s what we did on the play. Credit to him, because he’s always there.”