ALEMAN GESTURE DRAWS FIRE ON WEB
But FC Edmonton veteran finds support from his coach after team’s latest defeat
When Keven Aleman put a finger to his lips to shush a young teammate Wednesday, he might as well have just given him the finger, in the eyes of some.
The veteran forward missed out on a golden opportunity to open the scoring for FC Edmonton in what turned into a 3-1 loss to the Halifax Wanderers FC, choosing to take a shot in a crowd of defenders instead making an easy pass to a flanking Antony Caceres, who would have had all the time and space in the world to come up with a goal — a feat that is proving difficult for a squad with just three in four games at the Island Games.
Worse yet, the shot Aleman managed to get off sailed well wide of the goal.
And doubly worse, he followed up with the flippant gesture toward a questioning Caceres, which had those on Twitter, as well as Onesoccer.ca analysts, lamenting the fact Aleman should be holding himself to a higher standard as a leader on the team, especially when it’s a squad that’s stuck in the basement of the Canadian Premier League standings with time running out to make a push to advance to the group stage.
But that’s not how the situation appeared to those inside FC Edmonton’s room.
“Honestly, in our fourth game now you look at the minutes that Keven’s logged and how hard he plays the game of football on both sides of the ball: his transition to defending, his willingness to get back on the ball trying to make something happen, his desire. He trains the same way,” FC Edmonton head coach Jeff Paulus said in the post-game video conference. “If we’re talking about a gesture Keven’s made after attempting a shot over the four games of work, then I really think that we’re wasting airtime.
“If this is what’s being talked about on social media about a player that has been influential for us, that trains the way the game should be played, then I think we should be talking about a different Keven — a different player that is committed to the club, committed to training, has been a top performer for us in a lot of our games so far. That’s the Keven that I’ll talk about.”
It’s a delicate balance Paulus had to manoeuvre, considering the player on the receiving end of the gesture is a rising homegrown talent in Caceres. The 20-year-old Leduc product has worked his way through Paulus’s FC Edmonton Academy system to earn the opportunity that’s in front of him now.
And he wasn’t wrong to point out he would have had a much better opportunity to finish the play, even if it’s a conversation that could have waited to take place on the sideline instead of on the pitch.
Perhaps the shush was Aleman’s way of reminding Caceres the cameras were rolling.
“Listen, he cares. He wears his heart on his sleeve and if he had an emotional outburst because someone didn’t like that he shot a ball, I guess we’ll have to live with that,” Paulus said of the 26-year-old. “But this is a player that has my full trust, full confidence. That won’t change and I think we have a lot more to talk about when it comes to Keven Aleman than maybe telling someone to be quiet, I think is what it was.
“It’s a fair question, but I’ve got a lot of time for this player.”
As do half the teams in the CPL who were in the mix in March to bring aboard the 26-year-old Spanish-trained native of Costa Rica, who has previously played for Canada’s national team.
Subbed off in the second half, Caceres was taken aside by Paulus as the two shared a brief exchange.
“Antony was upset when he came off not because of the sub, but because of the first goal they scored,” Paulus said. “He felt that when he tried to play that back on one touch, he felt guilty about that and he was apologizing to me when I subbed him.
“I said to get it out of his mind, it’s already out of mine. He’s gone out there as a young player in a professional start and I thought he had a fantastic game for us. He’s creative, I love his passion and emotion, I love that he cares, I love that he cared when he came off and said that to me. But I just wanted to assure him that he’s got the support of his manager.
“Mistakes are going to happen. And young players, if they don’t play games at this age, then they’re never going to see the mistakes, but we’re never going to make them better players.”
FC Edmonton faces Valour FC on Saturday (10 a.m. MT, Onesoccer.ca).