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Kyle Hiebert


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  • 1 month later...
Posted (edited)
2 hours ago, FC_Hali said:

He has started the last 3 games for St. Louis as a left-sided centre back (a win and 2 draws, 2 clean sheets).

Great bump, thanks. Can someone remind me of his playing style, or a comparable player? I see he is just about Waterman's exact height and build.

Looking into it more, it looks like this is the spot next to Tim Parker and that the usual St Louis starter is/was Josh Yaro a Ghanaian who is out with a hamstring problem.

Will be interesting to see if Hiebert gets to keep the spot if the team continues to do well.

Parker/Waston was probably my favourite Whitecaps pairing of all time. In those days, Parker was pretty green and needed the physicality and relative confidence of Waston to balance out his finesse game. I would imagine Parker plays that role now but have no idea.

Edited by nolando
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3 hours ago, nolando said:

Great bump, thanks. Can someone remind me of his playing style, or a comparable player? I see he is just about Waterman's exact height and build.

Looking into it more, it looks like this is the spot next to Tim Parker and that the usual St Louis starter is/was Josh Yaro a Ghanaian who is out with a hamstring problem.

Will be interesting to see if Hiebert gets to keep the spot if the team continues to do well.

Parker/Waston was probably my favourite Whitecaps pairing of all time. In those days, Parker was pretty green and needed the physicality and relative confidence of Waston to balance out his finesse game. I would imagine Parker plays that role now but have no idea.

It's been a while since I have watched Heibert, but from what I recall he is a left-footed player. Decent passer and decent in posession. Can play short but will go long when pressured. Plays within himself and doesn't try to do too much. Can play full back as well, with more of a defensive profile in that position. He doesn't necessarily remind me of Zator, but writing out this description would suggest there are overlaps in their games (ability to play full back, for instance).

Overall he's not remarkable on the ball, or in the air, nor does he stand out for his speed, but I think he makes the right plays often enough to get to where he's at. The words 'safe', 'reliable', and 'average MLS defender' come to mind. 

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Posted (edited)
13 minutes ago, nolando said:

We do have a fairly big pool of average and unremarkable players at the moment.

Indeed.

These guys give us a higher floor than in years past though. Back a few cycles ago, the average,  unremarkable, sometimes-MLS starter would actually be in real contention to start for Canada. 

Now, most of these players get left off the roster selection all together.

We do need a couple of guys to take the leap, though. Seems like Bombito and Cornelius are the best bets. Give it 12 months and Bombito could be in Ligue 1 and Cornelius could be with Ajax/Feyenoord, hopefully. 

Then behind them, we'd have Miller and Waterman, both which are above-average for MLS (in my opinion).

And behind them, we'd have MacNaughton (was becoming above-average in MLS before the injury), McGraw (solidly average), Heibert (average), and young guns LDF and Jamie Knight-Label, plus Kennedy and Zator playing in Austria and Poland respectively. 

That's not a bad outlook, but the key for me is Bombito and Cornelius both taking the leaps I expect. 

Edited by Obinna
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17 minutes ago, Obinna said:

Seems like Bombito and Cornelius are the best bets. Give it 12 months and Bombito could be in Ligue 1

Given what we've seen and the combination of his size and speed, my gut tells me a few teams higher than Ligue 1 will be more than eager to splurge and take a chance on him.

 

19 minutes ago, Obinna said:

Then behind them, we'd have Miller and Waterman, both which are above-average for MLS (in my opinion).

I was high on Waterman a little while ago, but he has not looked good this season.  Not sure what is up there, his partners have changed as well as the coach, so hopefully it's just that.  But I'm not as comfortable as I was with seeing him in red.  MacNaughton was playing at a higher level pre-injury.  I feel we've seen Waterman's ceiling and it shouldn't be near CANMNT, barring injuries.  I hope he just remains a depth piece and not actually part of the squad.  LDF JKL and a healthy Kennedy are all above on my list.

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  • 3 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...
8 minutes ago, Unnamed Trialist said:

He was decent and did a job yesterday. They were all on their back foot but he handled it. 

As a middle of the pack MLS defender against France I think he put in a decent shift. Don’t think I need to see much more from him on the national team but certainly don’t think he embarrassed himself like some thought.

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It looked to me like they switched him from lb to rb during his short stint, perhaps because he had the trickier players to deal with on the French right and Laryea has more 1 v 1 defending experience and speed..

As he's really a CB, I think he did okay as well. I think his versatility likely gets him on the Copa squad ahead of Zator and even Waterman, particularly with Adekugbe out as he can provide fb cover to Davies, Johnston & Laryea

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He had a difficult assignment, coming in cold to defend a fresh Kingsley Coman while France were pushing late on. I thought he was beaten far too easily on the cross which lead to Kolo Muani’s missed header. We were really let off the hook there. Coman beat him by a good 2 or 3 strides. Still, hard to critique him given the level of competition.

Edited by FC_Hali
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2 hours ago, FC_Hali said:

He had a difficult assignment, coming in cold to defend a fresh Kingsley Coman while France were pushing late on. I thought he was beaten far too easily on the cross which lead to Kolo Muani’s missed header. We were really let off the hook there. Coman beat him by a good 2 or 3 strides. Still, hard to critique him given the level of competition.

Scott Kennedy was the man ,! For that spot .  

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Not sure I would call his shift "decent" - I think it was somewhere between a trainwreck and ok - a trainwreck when he was playing LB and getting torched/tortured by Coman, and ok when he shifted to RB and was able to semi-effectively double-team with Bombito against MBappe.

Edited by GasPed
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I thought he was very bad.  Yes he got torched for speed but he got dragged out of position so easily. He never knew if he should get tight, drop, step. Then when he got the ball he was not ever really able to pass it out of pressure. He made a few simple passes when he had time. 
 

My argument is that even if he didn’t get beat (example: his slide on the left side against coman) it was a bit lucky.  If he continually puts himself in positions where it’s going to be a foot race, he will be torched.  Unless his iq tremendously increases, we can’t trust him.   
 

 

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