He began on the right side of a midfield diamond and finished on the right side of defense.
For Ale Bedoya, where he plays on the pitch matters less than how he’s able to interact with the players around him. So with Dallas sitting deep in the waning moments of a 1-1 game, Bedoya continually charged forward with the ball, pushing the visitors into their own box and opening space for Ilsinho to terrorize Ryan Hollingshead.
The goal Bedoya scored, though, was about more than workrate and intelligence. After the game, the captain said he’d never scored one of those goals where the ball nutmegs the defender before. Strikers, he half-joked, always got those breaks.
A stoppage time winner was not the only reason Ale Bedoya made MLS Team of the Week. Defensively, he had a tackle and three recoveries in the attacking half of the field, and he spent the entire match pulling wide to open gaps in the center before bursting his lungs to get back into the team shape and clog the middle of the pitch. As the Union played out their third consecutive match without conceding from open play, Bedoya was always ready to drop in alongside Haris Medunjanin to protect his back four. The positioning, the effort, the movement – these are all things Jim Curtin looks at when he says that his captain is one of his most important players even though he doesn’t stuff the stat sheet.
When you do a lot of dirty work, sometimes it’s hard to get the spotlight to notice you.
This week, Bedoya could not be ignored.
