Coffee with the Caps, Monday December 7

Good Monday morning Caps fans, hope you are getting mentally ready for the week ahead. Glad you decided to start things off with us.

Well, folks, its that time of year, the most wonderful time of year. No, no, not the holiday season. It’s transfer rumor season baby, the gift that truly keeps giving in terms of page views.

And Vancouver is off the mark with respect to transfer rumors, as reports out of Colombia are heavily linking them with Deportivo Cali winger Deiber Caicedo, a seemingly well-regarded 20-year-old who can play on the right and left and who seems pretty well regarded in Colombia.

Now, this is far from a done deal. Marc dos Santos was cagey when asked about the rumor, saying “a lot of reports will come out from a lot of countries all the time”, which is likely true and good for the aforementioned web traffic. The Caps are on the market for a bevy of players and that means things will crop up, some of dubious accuracy.

And Nashville SC were interested in Caicedo over the summer, meaning they hold his (and I have to stifle a laugh when I write this) Discovery Rights. Obviously that is pretty pro forma stuff but it would be another hurdle.

These rumors do seem legit and I’m quite hopeful they are accurate. Caicedo’s raw numbers do not light the world on fire (3 goals and 14 assists in roughly 3,000 minutes over the last two seasons) but are still solid nonetheless for a guy of his age.

Caicedo is, however, the type of player the Caps have had mixed luck with in the past: pacey, a good dribbler and technically sound, yet also not physically imposing and coming from a weaker league (albeit one that has produced MLS stars in the past).

Still, there is a lot here to like and people who know way more about South American football than I do are bullish on Caicedo. Heck, Cali fans seem upset about losing him, which is always a good sign. And a Google search also appears to link him to Atlas and Club America in Mexico, both clubs that know a thing or two about scouting South America.

That’s a pretty impressive radar and a guy averaging almost six touches in the box per match is exactly the kind of thing the Caps should be looking to bring in. Cutting down on the turnovers would be nice but that will come with time and an adjustment to a regular first team football.

All-in-all Caicedo seems like the perfect use of the team’s Young DP slots. The rumored fee is $2.5 million, a bit more than his Transfermarkt value and maybe a bit high for his output but still a bargain compared to what a similar player in Argentina or Brazil would cost.

If Caicedo comes good, however, he could be moved on for a healthy profit. Even if he does not, he is young enough where you could probably find someone to take a chance on him and still not take a bath financially (the In-Beom model of player development). Seems like exactly the sort of move the team wants (and needs) to be moving towards.

Watch this space for more in the coming days folks.

Shameless Self Promotion

Also keep yours eyes on the site for our last Team Takeover piece, set to drop later today. If you missed the last one, we have it here

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