M
assimo Luongo – the 2015 Asian Cup’s most valuable player (my snobbish side precludes me from using MVP). Not Shinji Kagawa; not Son Heung-min; not Omar Abdulrahman, but Massimo Luongo. ‘Massimo Luongo of Swindon Town’ was stated by some, but most Asian Cup commentators/journalists preferred to stress his participation in ‘the third tier of English football’, the implication being that this is an aberration. And I suppose they’re right. It is an aberration or at least an oddity. The most valuable player in the Asian Cup ought not to be playing for a team in the third tier of English football. He probably ought to be playing in the Premier League, shouldn’t he?
Before the Asian Cup Luongo received no national coverage
(and, in fact, still doesn’t really) unlike another central midfield starlet of
League One, Dele Alli. Before his £5
million move to Tottenham from MK Dons, Alli had received a considerable amount
of national exposure, rarely out of national newspaper gossip columns with all
of the Premier League heavyweights reportedly monitoring his progress, and even
Bayern Munich. He was praised effusively
on the Football League show on a frequent basis and was even the subject of an
article which is still up on the League One section of BBC Sport: ‘MK Dons’
Dele Alli has the makings of next Steven Gerrard’. You might have thought that BBC Sport would
have done a piece on Massimo Luongo in the same section given his performances
in the Asian Cup, and Australia’s triumph, but they haven’t. Perhaps a piece is in the pipeline, I don’t
know. Anyway, why was Alli coveted by Premiership
clubs, whereas Luongo has only, thus far, attracted admiring glances in England
from Championship clubs?
Alli is 18; Luongo is 22. Alli is 6’2” plus and incredibly athletic, a bona fide thoroughbred;
Luongo is 5’9” and is neither particularly stocky nor quick. Alli is box-to-box; Luongo lets the ball do
the work. Alli has scored 12 league
goals this season; Luongo – 3. Alli is
the next Steven Gerrard; Luongo is still Luongo. Surely no contest then? Well, not quite. In technique and ball control Luongo has the
edge, I think, as well as a stronger left foot. The more you watch him the more you appreciate him. He’s so assured in possession that you think
one of his rare misplaced passes must be deliberate. To put it crudely, if Alli’s style mirrors
Gerrard’s, Luongo’s mirrors that of Jack Wilshere.
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