There isn't much to say about the much-circulated rumour that Whitecaps forward/incomprehensible left winger Camilo might be on his way to Kuwaiti team al-Qadsiya for a $500,000 transfer fee. It's a rumour. We get loads of them and I notice that Andriy Shevchenko hasn't pulled on a Whitecaps jersey yet. If that happens, the Whitecaps will get a fraction of that transfer fee which they can use to build a training facility or buy 20% of a grass pitch of something.
It sure has Vancouver fans talking, though. I've been e-mailed by fans hoping that it won't happen, and there's no doubt that young Sanvezzo has a lot of supporters. He's skilled, he's a scorer, he's young, he's flamboyant on the field, and he's Brazilian. There are loads of fans who'd be devestated to see Camilo go, even if the Whitecaps rake in a nice transfer fee and Camilo gets to advance his career abroad.
I'm not one of them.
This isn't to say he's a bad player; he's just not a great one. Camilo has his virtues (finishes well, flops like a fish) but he's not the straw that stirs the drink. If the Whitecaps gave Camilo up, they'd be slightly worse off... but only slightly. He certainly isn't worth raising a fuss over.
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If we talk about what Camilo is worth, we should first discuss what Camilo is. Notwithstanding Tom Soehn's recent use of the diminuitive Brazilian on the wing it's obvious that he's a natural striker. He moves well with the ball at his feet and has a good shot which he employs judiciously. He has a goal-scorer's mentality. That's annoyingly rare in North America, where forwards sometimes seem determined to walk the ball into the net, and it's the main reason I like him. If you give Camilo a clean look at goal, he will go for it. If that was the only thing he could do on a soccer field he would still be worth something.
It almost is the only thing he can do. The man cannot pass worth a damn; he neither picks the right time to make a pass nor hits it well when he does. Guys his size are usually assumed to be speed merchants but Camilo isn't that quick. He's shifty and agile, which is nice, but he has a nasty habit of playing himself into trouble and not being able to get out of it. Much of his famed flopping comes about because he realizes what a rotten position he's in and is hoping to get some advantage from it; watching Camilo and then comparing him to Davide Chiumiento is a study in contrasts. I'm not convinced Chiumiento is any better, technically, with the ball at his feet than Camilo is but Chiumiento is far better at knowing where to go and what to do when he gets ther.e
Then there are the natural enough weaknesses. Like most born forwards (and, oddly, unlike both Eric Hassli and Atiba Harris) Camilo can't play a lick of defense. He roams too much and has little positional sense meaning that his teammates seldom find him with killer balls because they don't know where he's going to be. He's a useful player but he's limited. This isn't a popular thing to say (the guy's fan club rivals Hassli's) but it's true. Love to have him on the team, I can think of a lot of uses for him on a very good MLS team. Given time, he might have Jeff Cunningham's career and that's nothing shabby. Right now, though, he's replaceable.
So that's why I can't get worked up about the possibility of Camilo leaving. It would be a good move for his career, and given that I like the little guy that means something. MLS rules mean Vancouver wouldn't get the whole $500,000 fee and they wouldn't be able to spend the bulk of what they got on players (the Whitecaps would see some allocation money but not a lot), but they'd be able to put some of it to other use like the long-hoped-for training facility. It would open up room for Russell Teibert and Omar Salgado; no bad thing in my books. The club would be just fine short-term for the loss of Camilo and, given that there's nothing holding him to MLS when his contract expires, might be better off long-term taking the money and running.
Will it happen? Well, I have no inside information here. Remember, I'm not a very good journalist: I actually had his agent's e-mail address but seem to have lost it. My gut instincts tell me no, though.
Camilo was available on a free transfer just three months ago after washing out with South Korean side Gyeongnam. He had a few MLS clubs sniffing around but no trials until the Whitecaps took a risk on him. Prior to his time in Vancouver his reputation had been made entirely on his fantastic scoring rate in Malta. How many teams, particularly in leagues like Kuwait where transfer fees for non-marquee players aren't always so readily available, would be willing to risk <i>half a million dollars</i>, just in transfer money, for a player because of fourteen fairly good but not elite games in a sub-world-class league?
Of course, al-Qadsiya might like him just that much and have the money to burn. It wouldn't be the first time I looked like an idiot. I don't think it will, though, and even if it did I wouldn't be terribly bothered.