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Beasley completes move from Puebla to Querétaro

DaMarcusBeasleyPuebla1 (MexSport)

By DAN KARELL

DaMarcus Beasley is on the move again.

After two and a half years with Puebla FC, the 31-year-old midfielder has completed a move to fellow Liga MX club Querétaro for the upcoming Clausura season, according to a press release on Queretaro’s website (UPDATE: Beasley’s agent, Richard Motzkin, has denied the veracity of Beasley’s transfer to Querétaro). Located about 135 miles north of Mexico City, finished seventh in the Apertura season but were bounced from the playoffs emphatically by Santos Laguna.

Beasley endured his worst season since joining Puebla in 2011 this past Apertura campaign, making only 12 appearances and failing to score any goals. Puebla as a whole had a poor season, finishing in 13th place in the Liga MX standings and winning just four matches in 17 games.

It’s the seventh different team that Beasley will play on in his 14-year professional career. The Fort Wayne, Ind. native’s struggles during the Apertura campaign may have come due to his busy travel schedule to represent the U.S. Men’s National Team, which he did on 17 occasions in 2013 alone. Beasley has virtually locked up the starting left back spot on USMNT ahead of the World Cup next summer.

Between 2011 and 2013, Beasley made 81 appearances for Puebla in all competitions, scoring 12 goals.

This past summer, Querétaro FC were at the center of one of the strangest sports events to take place. After being relegated following the 2013 Clausura campaign, the owner of the club decided that instead of having his team drop to the Ascenso MX, the second division in Mexico, he would buy another first division club and move it to Querétaro.

The club’s owners, Grupo Delfines, bought Jaguares de Chiapas and moved them to Querétaro, which set off a chain reaction that saw San Luis move to Chiapas and La Piedad, who were supposed to be promoted into Liga MX, move to Veracruz.

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What do you think of this news? Surprised to see Beasley leaving Puebla? Glad he’s moving to Querétaro?

Share your thoughts below.

Comments

  1. Dennis
    “Beasley does have some shortcomings, what player doesn’t.
    On balance, I think he has most of the tools to play LB, except size.”

    I hear this all the time and it is a bit tiresome.

    DMB , 5’8” 140 pounds

    Compared to:
    Ashley Cole, allegedly one of the best left backs of this generation, 5’8”, 150 pounds
    Fabio Contreao, Real Madrid and Portugal, 5’6”, 158 pounds
    Patrice Evra, overweight Man U , France left back, 5’9” 166 pounds

    DMB is smaller than these three pretty good left backs but not so much that it is a deal breaker.

    You might also note that all three are midfielders/fullbacks noted for their ability to attack, which is basically DMB’s thing..

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  2. Beasley does have some shortcomings, what player doesn’t. He is not big or strong and FB is not his club position, but he is quick, he has decent skills, he is a pretty smart player and truth be told, FB is not a position that requires a lot of complex decisions anyway. On balance, I think he has most of the tools to play LB, except size. He is decent 1v1 defending, he won’t get beat by pure speed, he can play the ball out of the back under pressure and he can get forward to support (or even lead) the attack. He is not a pure defender and may get caught out from time-to-time, that is what supporting teammates are for, any defender who never gets forward should need less support; Beasley is not one of those kinds of defender (unlike Boca for example who is a pure defender who seldom makes probing runs) so covering for him is part of what his teammates must do as the price a team must pay for having backs who join the attack.

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  3. Why stay in ligamx. Does he love mexican food,does he have a mexican girlfriend or an arrest warrant in the states 🙂
    He is worth the money in MLS, why not chicago.
    Another fact, puebla and querrataro are top tourist destinations besides beach cities, so i guess he will be a tourist guide in mexico….. What’s next chiapas, mexico df, leon 🙂

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    • Heś probably making more than 400k (just a guess) and no MLS team is going to pay him DP type of money. Good player but no need to pay that much in MLS if there are others willing to play for half that.

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    • Liga MX is as bad as MLS the way they trade players around. Even without single entity, the players seem to have no say in the matter. I guess for a player DaMarcus age, he wouldn’t have much bargaining power.

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  4. Beasley at LB is not that scary as long as Fabian Johnson plays in front of him. Those two are going to overlap each other back and forth anyway.

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  5. Now as an attacking left midfield/ winger who would you guys rather see as a sub, beasly or Castillo. I have liked what I’ve seen from Castillo recently when attacking so I’m leaning towards him at the moment.

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    • As an midfielder, I bet Beasley can still surprise. He is fast, good with the ball at his feet and is great at moving forward, see Dempsey’s goal from 2006 for proof.

      As a LB, he is a not our guy anymore.

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      • “Usaalltheway
        As an midfielder, I bet Beasley can still surprise. He is fast, good with the ball at his feet and is great at moving forward, see Dempsey’s goal from 2006 for proof. As a LB, he is a not our guy anymore”

        You have things backwards. DMB was not an LB in 2006. He was a top midfielder in 2006 but that was nearly eight years ago. George Bush was still president and we still had an economy. A lot has changed since then.

        He is at left back because JK wants Fabian for the midfield and after Fabian, DMB is the smartest, savviest all round option for that position. At this point DMB might have more games for the US at left back than Fabian.

        He is now an attacking left back who can occasionally shift to midfield in the course of the game but if DMB can’t play left back he ain’t going to Brazil. Barring an unlikely display from Lichaj or Chandler, DMB is the left back.

    • For pure attacking, with no regard for defense? Probably Castillo. But Beasley is the far better two way player. And he still provides something in the attack from LB. He gets forward and makes something happen at least a couple of times every game.

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      • But this would be if Johnson is playing left back and you make a sub for left wing (so say take out Dempsey/ej) so it would only be attack minded. Would you still take beasly!

      • As a sub at left wing I take Shea. In your scenario I take Beasley because I trust him to work well with Donovan and be up for the big game.

    • I think Castillo has real attacking instincts and looks very good at times. However, I think he is even worse on defense than DMB. It’s a tossup between the two for me.

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      • Not true. Earlier this year, the FMF passed a new law prohibiting any owner from owning more than one team. While Queretaro was relegated for being consistently bad, TV Azteca sold Jaguares de Chiapa to the current owners who then rebranded them as Queretaro and kept the team in the Primera Division in name. Points per game, averaged across 3 years is used to relegate a team in the Liga MX. To that note, Chiapas is currently above Puebla with the same average due to better recent form. ,

      • Oh yeah you’re right I remember hearing something about that. Sorry, I don’t usually keep up with too much liga mx.

  6. I hope he has not ” virtually locked up the starting left back spot on USMNT ahead of the World Cup next summer” because if so, we are gonna face some real trouble. Portugal, Germany, and Ghana are all muscular, strong teams and to say the least, Beasley is not muscular. I think he should make the team as a LM option or maybe back up LB, but Klinsmann better think twice about starting Beasley back there before Johnson.

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      • Yea, Ronaldo vs. Evans is gonna be scary. Id rather Cameron or Lichaj starting there that game. Cameron has the experience game in and game out against top competition and Lichaj has proven at times he can compete with the best wingers (see him against tottenham). Ideally for me, Klinsmann would have integrated Chandler by now because he would be the best matchup for Ronaldo but for some reason I doubt that will happen.

      • +1

        Lichaj can do it if anyone can.

        I have this feeling Cameron would get beat 8 out of 10 times against Ronaldo. I am one of those guys who isn’t so big on Ronaldo but one think he can do very well is run very QUICKLY. Lichaj shut down Bale, so maybe he can do it again.

        As much respect and admiration that Beasley is due, if he is our LB for the World Cup, we are doomed. He will get ripped apart in every game. A healthy Johnson MUST be our LB. I bet JK knows this and is planning for it.

        In general, our fullback situation is scary. RB not so much but LB…if Johnson is not healthy, the USMNT has no naturally good LB who can defend and move forward well.

      • Please stop with the Lichaj praise. There are two legit RB who are tied to the USA. Geoff Cameron and Timothy Chandler. I know the Chandler situation is tenuous at best, if he isn’t in the running this is Cameron’s job. (I know I’m leaving out Cherundolo, but he is too far past his prime to keep up with the likes of Ronaldo and Reus). At left back I think we all agree it is Fabians job. If for any reason Fabian is not available, I do think Beasley is all we have. He still needs to be on the plane to Brazil in my opinion.

      • I haven’t been watching Nurnberg this year much but how has Chandler looked? The team apears to be not doing so well a point above dead last.

      • yeah, stop praising a player who plays well. what are you, usaalltheway, some kind of objective observer or something?

      • Lichaj is the best option for both LB and RB. Is he world-class? No. Is he are second best option after Cameron? Absolutely!

        Chandler is a joke. If he plays for the USMNT is the World Cup over Lichaj or Cameron, I will stop supporting the USMNT until he is out. It would be extremely offensive to bring him on at this point after everything else other players have contributed to the team.

        At least Lichaj WANTS to play for us. Chandler isn’t even that good folks.

      • Ronaldo vs any fullback in the world is scary. Ronaldo vs any USMNT fullback is frighteningly scary. Not one of them, not a single one can competently cover the #1 or #2 player in the world by themselves and hopefully, Klinsmann will make that they won’t have to. It’ll be the RB and the RW, with support from deep-lying CM… maybe Chandler and Dolo start on the right, or Cameron and Evans do, or RB+Bedoya, or whomever it will be, but it will be two on one at least…

        I’d think a healthy Dolo is marginally better than Chandler b/c of experience, who may or may not be better than Cameron at this point, who’s better than Evans due to playing in a better league at the actual position and playing it well to adequately, who is equal to Lichaj-BUT no fan should kid themselves into believing any of them can stop Ronaldo by themselves

      • If we can’t stop Ronaldo, we’ll have to outscore him — just like Zlatan did…. wait, uh, forget that…..

        Look on the bright side though – if we could beat the “Golden Generation” of Portugal with a back line of Hejduk – Agoos – Pope – Sanneh, only one of whom had any overseas experience whatsoever, we might surprise them this time around.

      • agreed on the sentiment, but regarding overseas exerpeince both Hejduk and Sanneh played in the Bundesliga (Hejduk in the Champions League as well), and Agoos had a cup of coffee with the lower levels in germany.

      • Portugal in general had a bad World Cup in 2002. Also the element of surprise the US has had in the past no longer exists. Teams expect them to be a tough opponent.

      • As i have written before, we will have to double team Ronaldo when he has the ball if we want to stop him. Even then he may score a goal or two.

      • One man is not going to shut down Christiano Ronaldo.

        Lichaj had a good game against Bale that everyone at Villa remembers.

        You know what I remember about that game?

        Villa lost.

        Anyone can have one good game against a great player. For example when the US played Argentina in the 2007 Copa America the American left back shut down Messi so bad in the first half that:

        “Bornstein’s second half against Argentina wasn’t as good as the first half, but that first 45 minutes was the type of performance you put on a DVD and send to European clubs. Bornstein’s speed, ability to read the game and stay in front of Argentina’s attackers was impressive, as was the handful of times he was able to shut down Lionel Messi with well-timed tackles and fearless determination. He was so effective against Messi in fact, that Argentina slid Messi over to the left side, a move that helped precipitate the eventual collapse of the U.S. defense.

        Bornstein’s effort was made even more impressive by the fact that he just played in the Gold Cup semifinals and final a week ago, making it three high-level matches in eight days for the young fullback. Yes, Bornstein struggled in the second half, but Bornstein’s overall effort was still promising and only served to solidify his status as the first-choice left back in the U.S. national team pool.”

        If you think Portugal is a one man team then you are sadly misinformed.

        It will take a total team effort to beat Portugal and right now Evans and Beasley have been integrated into this team under fire. They have won their jobs under fire.

        So anyone who is going to displace them is going to have to make a case that they are a significant improvement over the incumbents.

        Assuming both are in top form, Dolo is experienced and talented enough and Chandler is talented enough that they are worth the wait but even they are past the point of automatic inclusion.

        In Lichaj’s case, he looked lost and tentative in his few minutes for the US recently which makes sense but he is running out of time.

        He won’t be at the January camp (schedule conflict) so it is unlikely that he will get more than one or two more friendlies to make his case. He is going to have to come in and play like he is the unquestioned left or right back the next chance he gets.

      • You are both right. I think Klinsmann played Beasley and Evans to build depth, not to groom them as starters for Brazil. I hope I’m not wrong, because Evans and Beasley worry me when we play in the Group of Death.

    • I think Fabian is still very much in play for LB. Beasley has faced top competition before, and I think his experience is worth something there – I don’t think he’d get embarrassed, even against teams like that. But I agree that Fabian is likely a better option. He plays plenty of left back in the Bundesliga, so it shouldn’t be an issue that he hasn’t gotten too many reps there lately for the US.

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    • we will NOT make it out of the group stage with Beasley at LB. We probably won’t make it out anyway, but we have no shot if he’s our starting LB

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