The Canadian winger could offer Inter something different.
The Movement is a documentary series produced by Major League Soccer in which former Chicago Fire and Houston Dynamo player Calen Carr travels across North America with the aim of discovering and highlighting various local soccer cultures. In one of the episodes the visit christens Brampton, the ninth most populous city in Canada. Brampton is one of the most multicultural places in the country, with very large communities of South Asian, South American and Caribbean origins, among many. Accompanying him, in addition to the rapper of Sikh origin Noyz, are two Canadian football national teams, Jonathan OsorioMLS champion in 2017 with Toronto FC, and Kadeisha Buchanan, five-time European champion with Lyon, now at Chelsea, both grew up in Brampton. So, just to understand why the Ontario city, just a few miles away from Toronto, has developed one of the most vibrant soccer scenes in the entire country.
Players such as were born or trained here in football Junior Hoilettwith his decades of experience in English football, Paul StalteriGerman champion with Werder Bremen, and the record holder for appearances, Atiba Hutchinsonas the best scorer, Cyle Larinof the Canadian men’s national team.
Support Sportellate: associates Our work is based on the commitment and passion of a young editorial team. Through the association you help us grow and always improve the quality of the content. Join now!
Among the youngest sons of Brampton to make their way into professional football, Tajon Buchanan he is one of the first protagonists in chronological order of the winter transfer market, with his transfer almost completed from the Nerazzurri of Club Brugge to that of Inter. Buchanan was born and raised there in Brampton, and he trained in the local scene, pushing himself to the limit in neighboring Mississauga. At fifteen, to have greater visibility at US colleges, he decided to follow Chrys Chrysantou, his coach at the Mississauga Falcons, in Denver, to play with the Real Colorado youth team. The transfer alerted the US federation and FIFA which, as Buchanan did not move with his biological family, prevented him from taking the field for the new team. Buchanan could train with his peers, but not play official matches and gain visibility.
To overcome this unexpected event, he decided to show up on the Syracuse University campus to take part in an audition, at a cost of $250, and was selected for a scholarship by the Orange coach, Ian McIntyre. To be academically eligible for the scholarship, however, Buchanan would have had to collect seven credits in high school in a space of five months, when Colorado schools award six over an entire school year. Buchanan decided, for a few months, to suspend training to dedicate himself exclusively to school, passing the last necessary course in the week of the deadline. Thus, Tajon Buchanan returned not far from the shores of Lake Ontario, in the state of New York, to a university with a special connection with Canada, given that, of the twenty-eight players selected in the MLS Draft by the Syracuse Orange, eight are Buchanan’s compatriots.
Some Buchanan highlights for New York State University.
Also due to its geographical proximity – from Syracuse it takes less than two hours by car to reach the border – Canada has for years been a logical choice for the recruiting of Orange. The first known name was that, at the end of the last millennium, of Patrice Bernier, legend of the Montreal Impact and protagonist of fifty-six appearances with the Canadian national team. Of the three MLS All-Stars who came out of Syracuse, in addition to the American Miles Robinson, two are Canadian, both called up for the 2022 World Cup: defender Kamal Miller and Tajon Buchanan, who reached the milestone in 2021, wearing the shirt of those New England Revolution who had chosen him with the ninth pick del Draft 2019.
Buchanan had arrived in Foxborough by the will of the technical project led by Brad Friedelreplaced, after the first three games as a starter among Buchanan’s professionals – which ended with a 4-4 against Sporting Kansas City and with two clear defeats, 6-1 and 5-0, against Philadelphia and Chicago – by Bruce Arena. The reputation of the American football legend, winner of five MLS Cups and coach of the US national team at the 2002 World Cup, had taken a beating from which the then sixty-eight year old did not seem able to recover when he managed to miss, away to Trinidad and Tobago , the qualification for the 2018 World Cup with the United States. Yet, two years after his return to a club bench, Arena, with the dual role of coach and sporting director, had managed to rebuild a franchise, leading it to the record for points in a single regular season in MLS.
At the Revolution, Arena preached a recipe based on tactical fluidity, sliding from system to system, from 4-2-3-1 to the midfield diamond with two strikers, keeping faith with that principle he enunciated, with its typical angularityso “my players are suitable for any formation in which they play well and move well together”. What guided their players and gave them a recognizable style was the continuous search for verticality, taking advantage of the transitions and disorganized structure of the opponents after New England’s ineffective low block attack. Furthermore, with an exceptional center forward in the air like the Polish Adam Buksa, the Revolution relied heavily on high balls, finishing the 2021 season first in MLS in terms of number of crosses with 741 (fbref data). An ideal context to enhance a player like Buchananwhether he started as a high right winger, right-wing pivot of the midfield diamond or – more rarely – right back.
In Bruce Arena’s Revolution the fluidity of the positions was often given by Carles Gil. The former Aston Villa player has total freedom of movement and here, served in depth by Farrell, he moves to the wing. Buchanan is careful to occupy the middle space, always be ready to receive and above all to find the most difficult solution – the shot.
Buchanan, in fact, is excellent in ball-and-foot progressions. Both his agility and his short explosiveness make his feet look like a safe from which it is not easy for the ball to escape without his permission. His ball-and-chain runs, with those dribbles that intertwine like they were wicker, recall the choreographies of his compatriot Tate McRae, and his playing style is as brazen, aggressive and ruthless as the voice of his equally compatriot Alanis Morrissette. Right-footed and deployed for most of his career on the right, Buchanan is not a mechanical player however, limited in running options to rigid rails. He is comfortable operating even in more central corridors, always favoring passage management as a method of creating space, given his limited skills in passing game.
Isolated against two opponents, Buchanan has a set piece that puts him off the radar of opposing defenders, creates separation and space for a good shot. Here too the shot that comes out is not the simplest.
His versatility, tested already in the early stages of his professional career not only by Bruce Arena, but also by the coach of the Canadian national team John Herdman – in the 2021 Gold Cup he played the entire group stage as a left winger of a five-man midfield, with excellent performances also in the big match against the United States – he came in handy for Buchanan when he arrived in Brugge, following the purchase by Blue-Black for six and a half million from the New England Revolution. Under the leadership of Alfred Schreuder, Buchanan initially found space as the fifth left winger in the systemwhile following the manager’s move to Ajax and the subsequent tumultuous year spent between Carl Hoefkens and Scott Parker, the Canadian’s employment perfectly summed up the chaos within the Flemish club.
In 2022/23 Buchanan played in every possible position on both flankswith a slight prevalence for the high right winger, where he was not a permanent starter given the presence of Andreas Skov Olsen. At the dawn of the following season, however, came the definitive change of position and the permanent move to right-back. The choice was made by Ronny Deila, curiously the one who, at the helm of New York City FC, had eliminated the New England Revolution in the playoffs for the 2021 MLS Cup, in what would have been Buchanan’s last match in Massachusetts.
Few players in Europe move the ball forward like Buchanan (Data: Fbref via FBCharts)
In the Norwegian coach’s system, Buchanan is especially important for superimpositions from afar: the full-backs must stay very high, creating density in the external channels with the aim of either creating space for the passers behind the last defensive line or freeing the winger to shoot with his foot inverted. The Club Brugge of 2023 is a team that moves up the pitch by exploiting runs on the outside, enhancing dribbling skills and ball security of the Canadian winger.
Defensively, Buchanan is at the beginning of the process of training a winger to transform into a fullback, with the ball far away he is still a lazy defender. The Canadian rarely controls the surrounding areas of the field, he still turns his head too little to have a complete picture of the situation. In possession, however, he has shown interesting instincts since his time in New England. Due to the physical structure, it is difficult to overcomeeven if he too often goes in search of the play from highlights rather than simply containing the opponent. When he opens his legs, he manages to cover a lot of ground and his reaction times are useful in order not to make him fall into other people’s feints.
Against Hany Mukhtar, one of the most phenomenal progressive dribblers seen in MLS in the last five years, Buchanan, with the coolness of a saloon duel, reveals himself as the man with the rifle of Sergio Leone’s memory
If the principle of a gradual growth process is applied – a player arrives at a certain level, adapts to it, excels at it and then goes on to test himself at the next level – then it could be argued that Buchanan, in his imminent move to Inter, is forging ahead. It would be difficult to talk about him as the best full-back in the Belgian Pro League, because he has a lot to improve in interpreting the role. But the growth processes of footballers are almost never the result of schematic and repeatable processes on a large scale.
Everyone has their own, and Buchanan’s has never been particularly linear. He wasn’t one at youth level, due to the tortuous road that led him to college; in MLS, where more and more wingers leaving the NCAA have to transform into full-backs to hope to have a first-team contract; in Belgium, where it took many attempts to find an ideal location. Buchanan arrives at Inter without the expectation of having to be an immediate starter and decisive player but with the obligation to adapt quickly and be an option for a team committed on multiple fronts.
To Simone Inzaghi Tajon could offer an interpretation of the role different from that of Dumfries or Darmian, but not only. Also a malleability typical of the versatile player who, over the years, has been asked to occupy many different roles. Precisely for this reason the potential transfer is intriguing and, even if the adventure of the first Canadian in Inter’s history were to end in an unsatisfactory manner, he will always remain a profile on which it made sense to bet.
2024-01-02 09:00:00
#Tajon #Buchanan #winger #sought #Inter #play
