After being linked to Fabrizio Miccoli, William Gallas and Giorgos Karagounis in the off-season, the signing of Chilean defender Pablo Contreras last week may come across as a little underwhelming to many Melbourne Victory fans who aren’t familiar with his career. Therefore it seems that this would present the perfect opportunity to look at what he brings as to the nation’s best supported football side and why he is worthy of marquee status
Experience
Contreras brings a wealth of experience to what is a very inexperienced Melbourne Victory backline having plied his trade outside of his homeland for most of his career and has featured in the Champions League, Europa League and at a World Cup. Outside of Adrian Leijer and Adama Traore the promising defensive trio of Nick Ansell, Scott Galloway and Jason Geria have a grand total of twenty-two appearances between them and the inclusion of Contreras brings not only much needed depth but also a wealth of experience that will only benefit the aforementioned trio.
Contreras began his career with Chile’s biggest and most successful club, Colo Colo, at the age of eighteen before heading to Europe two years later where he had spells in France, Spain, Portugal and Greece. His longest spells came with Celta Vigo in Spain, where he spent seven seasons (including two loans spells to Osasuna and Sporting Club Portugal) and PAOK in Greece where he spent three seasons. In fact Contreras is one of the rare Chilean defenders to ply his trade outside of Latin America and fairly successful at that.
Adding to experience at club level Contreras also brings a significant amount of international football experience to the table. He is Chile’s eighth most capped player and second most capped active player with sixty-seven appearances after making his debut in 1999 making key contributions to Chile’s appearance at the 2000 Olympics and the 2010 World Cup.
His last match for the national team a little under a year ago and despite playing in nine of Chile’s qualifiers for the 2014 World Cup hasn’t received a call up since Jorge Sampaoli took charge of the national team in early 2013. Despite his impressive performances during the qualification campaign for the 2010 World Cup campaign under Marcelo Bielsa, Contreras has been somewhat unfairly tarnished by Sampaoli’s predecessor Claudio Borghi’s time in charge of Chile.
During the early stages of qualification Chile leaked nineteen goals in nine matches which was mainly down to the manager’s naïve tactics and the team’s general indiscipline both on and off the pitch although Contreras didn’t do himself any favours getting sent off in his last appearance in a losing qualifier against Ecuador.
Style of play
One of the big question marks is how quickly that Contreras can get up to speed with Melbourne Victory’s style of play under Ange Postecoglou. Most Chilean defenders are comfortable on the ball and technically very good and Contreras is no exception. The Victory coach is most likely aware of this and it is probably his hope that the young players in the defence will learn much from their experienced counterpart in this respect. What will have also surely appealed to Postecoglou that Contreras flourished under Marcelo Bielsa in a high intensity environment, playing a key role in Chile’s qualification for the 2010 World Cup and its progression out of the group stage of that competition with a style that captured the imagination of many.
Title winner
It feels like a long four years since Melbourne Victory last lifted the A-League trophy and the fans would like nothing more than that title drought to come to an end. In Contreras, they have a player, who is not immune to winning trophies, particular early on his careers with clubs. During his short time with Colo Colo he won two titles before winning the Ligue 1 title in the season he joined Monac. His last season in Greece with Olympiacos was also successful as he helped them qualify for this year’s Champions League by winning the Greek Superleague, although he was deemed surplus to requirements subsequently.
Concerns
At the age of thirty-five, one concern may be Contreras’ ability to keep up with the plethora of pacey young attacking talent on show in the A-League but as Patrick Zwaanswijk has shown in recent seasons with Central Coast, age is no barrier and with his football smarts and years of experience playing in Europe Contreras should have no problem fitting into life in the A-League.
It is somewhat of cliché that Chileans have a fiery temperament and in Contreras, Melbourne Victory have a player who has picked up his fair share of yellow cards during his career. Fortunately there is only a spattering of red cards amongst those yellow cards but with the A-League’s relatively short season the fans won’t want to see their marquee player on the sidelines due to ill-discipline.
Melbourne Victory supporters are hard task masters especially as they look to break that title drought and as Contreras is not necessarily the player that many would have expected or wanted he will be judged accordingly. But with his wealth of experience playing with a number of high profile clubs in their respective countries Pablo Contreras could prove to one of Ange Postecoglou’s most astute signings in recent times.