Throughout this Major League Soccer season, Andrew Farrell earned praise for his two-way effectiveness as a right back for the New England Revolution.
The New England Revolution were knocked out of the MLS Playoffs last night, but Farrell has raised his game to a new level.
Amidst all of the just praise for DeAndre Yedlin, Andrew Farrell has truly cemented his status as an outstanding American talent who lived up to his hype and exceeded it.
Farrell is technically a center back, but Farrell not only embraced the right back role, but he also developed into an international-caliber outside back.
He used his skill on the ball and his blazing speed to burst through the opposition with forays downfield and also to hunt down attackers on the defensive end.
Even more so than in all of his quality and impressive performances throughout the regular reason, Farrell raised his game to a new level in the MLS Playoffs where he showed how well he could shut down attackers and how much he could impose his will on the game in the attack and in the defense.
While American defenders like Geoff Cameron, Chris Klute, Shane O’Neill, and DeAndre Yedlin have also shown this quality, Farrell showed a real ability to dribble and pass out of trouble deep in the heart of his own defense, as opposed to just sending clearances 50 yards downfield.
Farrell certainly knows when to just send a ball way out of the defense or play a ball out of bounds, but the combination of being able to dribble and pass out of the back combined with the instinct to know when to send a ball out of the danger area is something Jürgen Klinsmann and the United States Men’s National Team can use.
World Soccer Source covered Chris Klute extensively this season in addition to highlighting the excellent qualities in DeAndre Yedlin’s game as a right back, but Andrew Farrell is equally as worthy of praise as Klute and Yedlin.
Yedlin and Klute will both be upgrades at the outside back positions for the United States, but Andrew Farrell is a monster who combines an intimidating combination of strength, size, and speed with a cultivated technical skill-set that makes him too good to leave off the the USMNT anymore.
When Klinsmann was watching Matt Besler, Graham Zusi, Benny Feilhaber, and Juan Agudelo last night, there’s no way that he didn’t notice the impressive play of Andrew Farrell who is certainly someone who was being monitored and scouted anyway.
At the conclusion of Andrew Farrell’s rookie season in MLS, it’s safe to say that Farrell is for real and that he can certainly excel at the international level and outside of MLS.
Andrew Farrell is a freak of nature and his rookie season was a tour de force that displayed great attacking and skill on the ball along with strong defending and tackling without recklessness