Eloi Amagat [Midfielder]

[dummyrun]

That's one question.

That's a completely different question. And you know the answer to this.

1. nobody ever heard of him before
2. the first things we learned were that he was a career second division player who worked with Torrent at some point, whose team was finally promoted to first division last season, upon which he refused a transfer to a team back to second division, because he would rather play 2-3 games all season in La Liga with his hometown team than play regularly -- which in fact happened, and is something of a nice story and all -- but signals he's not very good and he's rusty and he has more loyalty than talent and is probably only here because he knows Dome
3. with that background he better prove himself fast or people will turn against him
4. instead in his first game -- a derby -- he lets Royer out-hustle him to a ball on which Amagat had position, leading directly to a BWP goal, followed by a red card 3 minutes later, at which point his fate was probably sealed, barring clear and obvious stellar play and good results, but instead
5. the team earned only 9 points in the 8 games he played

With all that, asking for neutral, analytic assessment of his play to unlock the mystery of why people don't like him is rather missing the point. Might not be fair but that's what set people off.

This all sounds on the money to me and you're probably right that it's the actual answer to my question. But a lot of fans seem to have gotten from this stuff to a strong negative opinion about his play, and I'm curious about that part.

 

[mgarbowski]

This all sounds on the money to me and you're probably right that it's the actual answer to my question. But a lot of fans seem to have gotten from this stuff to a strong negative opinion about his play, and I'm curious about that part.

Have I mentioned confirmation bias lately?

 

[ZYanksRule]

I've tried doing this survey on Twitter and reddit but maybe it'll get more substantive responses here: If you disliked Amagat, why? What parts of his game did you think were lacking?

I don't really have a strong opinion about the guy but the amount of hate he got is fascinating. Trying to understand what exactly set people off about him.

He wasn't very productive here, but let's be honest: We were hoping for a player who would help, and his signing was a giant letdown.

The red card in his debut in our biggest game of the season didn't help, either.

 

[Gotham Gator]

From ITS in a story on Instagram: goodbye Eloi?

Or goodbye Izzy.

 

[Gotham Gator]

Okay that's a start but a better start would be to identify the soccer things he's bad at so we can figure out where we could have better spent that money.

Mark’s answer pretty much hits it. Go back and look at the comments from the top of the thread. People were skeptical from the start. He was less than we needed, and the performance in his first game was all most needed to see to pass judgment. That he played a lot better as the season wore on was never going to be enough to flip the narrative.

 

[mgarbowski]

Or goodbye Izzy.

I considered that, but figured Isi would give a more general goodbye if he were leaving, and also not hide it in an impermanent story. Though if he is leaving and pointedly issues that as his only public goodbye that says a lot, and nothing good. But I have no sense he is that unhappy here, or even at all unhappy.

 

[Seven]

Agree we some others that his first impression doomed him; early red card against the biggest rivals? Not the way to start. He did play better in subsequent appearances but I think most fans already had an opinion of him and were unwilling to rethink it. Same thing happened to Berget at the beginning of the season.

For me, a lot of my issue with Amagat wasn’t really about Amagat personally, but more about Dome’s use of him. It felt like Amagat was the first name Dome penciled into the 18 every week. And then it always seemed like he was subbing in, no matter the game situation.

And yes, this is a little unfair to Amagat because it’s not his fault, and he seems like a nice guy, but I want him gone just to end Dome’s obsession with him

 

[dummyrun]

For me, a lot of my issue with Amagat wasn’t really about Amagat personally, but more about Dome’s use of him. It felt like Amagat was the first name Dome penciled into the 18 every week. And then it always seemed like he was subbing in, no matter the game situation.

Which players should have been getting minutes over him? Why?

 

[LeeNYCFC]

Which players should have been getting minutes over him? Why?

Think it's still an impossible argument. Tommy and J-Lew and Bedoya and Sands could've all been in the mix, but we're tilting at hypotheticals about players that never or almost never played, or almost never played under Dome. The primacy effect is strong, and fans saw someone go straight into the team and screw us in a derby (although getting sent off did turn the 9-man draw into an exhilarating achievement). You also have to account that when he played, we were slumping. Dropping points is a sharp cliff that says, okay in retrospect things should've been done differently. So in retrospect, we lost a lot of the games he played, he was a 3 month player for us, and the thing he was here to do, better articulate Dome's way of playing, never seemed to come off. I absolutely agree with him having gotten better over his time here, but in retrospect sure I wish that we'd played Sands or Lewis or well probably still not Tommy.

 

[Ulrich]

This all sounds on the money to me and you're probably right that it's the actual answer to my question. But a lot of fans seem to have gotten from this stuff to a strong negative opinion about his play, and I'm curious about that part.

He wasn’t speedy. He wasn’t overly technical. He was borderline reckless in challenges when not getting the red. He brought no creativity. And nearly every pass went backwards rather than trying to plays teammates in.

Sands could have easily been inserted instead and brought more moxy to the match. Lewis could have brought more offensive punch. Even TMac wouldn’t have made me cringe on challenges which is an offsetting net zero since no challenge would be made. There were options, and Dome ignored them for his hometown buddy.

 

[BxLio91]

His debut was on par with the Shockmaster.

 

[LionNYC]

Ah, the real reason why I didn't enjoy Amagat. He stole minutes from James Sands. And Sands deserved and needed those minutes.

 

[SoupInNYC]

A lot of good commentary on why he may not have been liked. And the other thing that didn’t help, was he never really did anything great to mitigate those other items.

Yeah, outside of his debut, he wasn’t terrible, but he really wasn’t impactful at all. And it’s ok to have guys like that on the team get minutes here and there that fit into a team with more talented pieces around him.

I don’t think he was ever as bad as the fan base commentary said he was, but there was definitely reason to either not like him or not like the fact that he was receiving as much playing time as he did.

 

[Christopher Jee]

He wasn’t speedy. He wasn’t overly technical. He was borderline reckless in challenges when not getting the red. He brought no creativity. And nearly every pass went backwards rather than trying to plays teammates in.

Sands could have easily been inserted instead and brought more moxy to the match. Lewis could have brought more offensive punch. Even TMac wouldn’t have made me cringe on challenges which is an offsetting net zero since no challenge would be made. There were options, and Dome ignored them for his hometown buddy.

I've always thought the "hometown buddy" thing was overplayed.

I think he was there to be the second Maxi. As time went on, I appreciated the way he got into space to receive the ball, draw numbers and lay it off so that other players could play it into the space left by the defenders he drew into him. He didn't have the mobility to recover the ball as effectively as anybody in our top 3 (Herrera, Maxi and Ring) but was probably more or less on par with Ofori. His defensive positioning and awareness were not as good as they had to be for somebody lacking that much athleticism.

 

[Shwafta]

For the record, my friend and I started a Valencia save in FIFA19, and as a joke bought a lot of players from NYCFC: Wallace, T-mac, Eloi, Stuver, and Sands. Sands played better than any midfielder already on Valencia in the career mode. Even FIFA knows that Sands is great.
Eloi, on the other hand, actually played very nicely as well, but wasn't as good as Sands.
I know FIFA 19 isn't a good comparison at all, but hey, even FIFA knows.

 

[Christopher Jee]

For the record, my friend and I started a Valencia save in FIFA19, and as a joke bought a lot of players from NYCFC: Wallace, T-mac, Eloi, Stuver, and Sands. Sands played better than any midfielder already on Valencia in the career mode. Even FIFA knows that Sands is great.
Eloi, on the other hand, actually played very nicely as well, but wasn't as good as Sands.
I know FIFA 19 isn't a good comparison at all, but hey, even FIFA knows.

Are you sure Sands didn't play better because you think he's better than Amagat?

 

[Shwafta]

Are you sure Sands didn't play better because you think he's better than Amagat?

Nah, he played better when t hey were both in the midfield and he was able to pass better than Amagat
To be fair, Amagat was also good.

 

[Mario]

Which players should have been getting minutes over him? Why?

danny bedoya because he is my friend

 

[Marito]

I'm on record having somewhat defended Amagat since the beginning, and I think has was an almost fanatical, single-minded forward-passer compared to Ofori, who was the only like-for-like in the roster if we are to assume that Dome, for whatever reason, didn't want to play the 18 y.o. Sands. Of course I think Sands should have gotten lots or all of the minutes that Amagat took. I think that's not a debate on this board. But with Ofori I see a wash at best. Yes, it was concerning that Amagat didn't realize how much athleticism he's lost and would launch into superhero tackles that would look bad, but he had many qualities IMHO.

Also, what's the beef with the Spanish 2nd division? I am absolutely convinced that many many players in the roster of contender teams in the Spanish 2nd division (or in the roster of bottom-feeders currently in La Liga, which is the same) would be excellent in MLS. Much better than the average for sure. I mean, we've moved on from the TMacs and Grabavoys and Mikey Lopez of the world but we are very far from being clearly superior to the Spanish 2nd division, me thinks. So I don't think Amagat's curriculum was a problem, his age could be, and that became clear after the 1st game.

 

[SoupInNYC]

Also, what's the beef with the Spanish 2nd division? I am absolutely convinced that many many players in the roster of contender teams in the Spanish 2nd division (or in the roster of bottom-feeders currently in La Liga, which is the same) would be excellent in MLS. Much better than the average for sure. I mean, we've moved on from the TMacs and Grabavoys and Mikey Lopez of the world but we are very far from being clearly superior to the Spanish 2nd division, me thinks. So I don't think Amagat's curriculum was a problem, his age could be, and that became clear after the 1st game.

Alex Callens came from the Spanish second division and that's turned out quite well.