Player Profile: Marco Antonio “Pikolin” Palacios

A lot of arguments in the Pumas Blog office over who was going to get to write this profile, I prevailed by simply doing it whilst everyone else was arguing. One of the many joys of footy (and getting old) is watching a young talent come through, blossom, and go on to have an illustrious career. For me, however, I much prefer to see the emergence of a player who you know will never really amount to anything in the game. And this brings us to a great hero of ours, Marco Antonio “Pikolin” “Sideshow Bob” Palacios.

He came into the fuerzas basicas of Pumas, along with his twin brother Alex, at the age of 16. His brother is now our third choice keeper. Marco first broke into the first team on 25th January 2004, just short of his 23rd birthday. That day Pumas beat Atlas 3-0 in CU. Over the next season or so he played a bit, in the Clausura 2004 he played a total of 12 minutes over 4 matches, thus gaining a League winners medal. He also played a few games in following season, so this young man has two winners medal, plus the champions of champions. He has become a regular, however, during our lean times which sees us in danger of relegation this year. Far be it from me to draw any conclusions from this.

His big day, when he burst onto the scene in unforgettable manner was during the Apertura 2005, 24th September 2005, away at Morelia. I was lucky enough to travel to this match, and I could write for ages about the trip, but suffice to say after seeing the shirt Tricky bought outside the ground, our only option was to hit the bottle.

We knew it would be tough that day: - Ailton da Silva was out suspended (surprise!), and Castro and Leandro were both out injured. So rather excitingly Pikolin was chosen to fill in right-back duties for Castro: - a position I don’t think he had ever shown any aptitude for. We still had Pineda on the left and with Beltran and Veron in the centre things should not have been a big problem at the back. Botero opened the scoring, 13 minutes in, before we had really grasped that we were in the presence of an historic performance.

Marco quite simply was worse than shocking. As well as normally being more out of position than even Lozano ever managed most of the time, he just didn’t look like a footballer. I am not sure that a single one of passes went anywhere near their intended target that day. Mis-controls of simple passes gave Monarcas plenty of throw ins. My favourite part however, was how often he stepped on, or tripped over the ball. I nearly ran out of groans that day. We were lucky that old “King” Kenny Cumming was with us that day, the grand old man of Scottish football. Now this man has seen more football, in more countries than any other living man. So he knows a thing or two. About 15 minutes from the end, he gathered us around, and rubbed his rheumy eyes. “Boys,” he said in his familiar hoarse whisper, “This is the worse performance I have ever seen by a professional footballer in my life.” He than sank back into his seat, the exertion and emotion obviously too much for his weak and decrepit body. An awed silence echoed around the ground. We had a moment. Cardetti came on to set up a last minute equaliser, converted by Veron; we got away with 2-2.

Since that day, we have all taken a great interest in Marco, and I must say he has never reached those depths again. When Miguel España played him as a defensive midfielder he looked a much better prospect. His distribution is not always great; he has a “Butch” Wilkins crab-like tendency for the square ball, usually played behind the recipient. But in that position he really did break up a lot of attacks. His greatest moments, for maybe his entire career, will be the South American Cup run of 2005. This is already legendary, and Pikolin certainly played his part. Playing solidly throughout, despite a few mishaps (away v Corinthians, for example). And it was during the quarter final away leg v Corinthians that his long hair, with bandera letting it flop all over the place, his big feet and his all too often clown like antics led us to christen him “Sideshow Bob” – he really does look like him when he has his hair long, I promise you. But the highlight for him, I am sure was the Velez Sarsfield semi-final tie. Along with everyone else played well to get 0-0 at their place, but better was to come at CU. He opened the scoring with his head that night, before Marioni went on to get a hat-trick. What a night! Doing the Argentinean league champions 4-0 to reach the final! And Marco had the honour of coming over to the Pebetero to lead a Goya…. I have never seen anyone do it with such obvious passion and delight, bless him. And he certainly deserved it, and he must have thought about how far he had come in such a short time:- just two months since Morelia.

He also played well in both games of the final, in which we were cruelly robbed v Boca, but then came the fateful Christmas gift of a bingo machine for Miguel España.

In the Clausura 2006 España used this machine for both team selection and team tactics; it first became apparent on the 8th February 2006, during the first Libertadores game. This was a disastrous campaign, and poor Palacios found himself playing hopelessly out of position, culminating in a league match where he played as a lone striker – to no avail, I need not add.

So, he is still young(ish), but for me his best position will always be defensive midfielder, and it caused gasps of horror when Tuca declared he did not need to replace our long time captain, and rock like central defender Beltran because, “we have Marco Antonio Palacios”. I remember once seeing Beltran win the ball when he was stranded in a one on three break, and yet Sideshow seems to struggle to have any positional sense at centre back at all. He is OK in the air, being tall, and tends to go up for corners. I do not think he looks that comfortable on the ball, and his passing is still suspect, as is his vision. As Frank recently pointed out, he ALWAYS looks like he’s playing off the wrong foot – whichever foot he is using.

This season I thought he looked shaky v Atlas, but Tricky was moved to use the expression “growing in stature”, which he quickly withdrew after the terrible showing v Veracruz. But again, in Chiapas he looked solid again. Maybe he will grow into a centre back role – I hope so.

Marco Antonio Palacios Redorta – “Pikolin” or “Sideshow Bob”
Date of Birth: - 3rd March 1981
Place of Birth: - DF, Mexico
Weight: - 76 kgs
Height: - 1.9 metres.

Shirt number: - 23
League Career: - (as of 22nd August 2006)
Games played 32 (15 complete, 21 starting and 11 as sub)
One red card, no goals.

Can’t put together figures on his cup games... but he’s played a few, however did not play in any of the Liguilla matches.

Game 3: Jaguares away

Jaguares v PUMAS 19th August 2006
Estadio Victor Manuel Reyna

Video Highlights

Last season we lost here 5-1, but we have turned that around to give us our first victory outside the DF since the opening game of Apertura 2005 (31st July) v Santos, 2-1. That day Argentinean Cardetti came on to score a late winner. We now have a new Argentinean’s name on our lips: - Ignacio Scocco is fast becoming a darling of the faithful.

We were expecting to see Fernando Espinosa in for the suspended Sancho , but Tuca went with young Alex Diego, who just came back to us after a year away.

Despite all the warnings of the Chiapian heat, a huge downpour put pay to this. We started very shaky, unable to hold on the ball, passes going astray left right and centre, and a seeming lack of understanding up front.

Jaguares had the early running, twice getting the ball in the net, once after a foul on Bernal, the second adjudged offside. They had the midfield packed, and we could not get control, when suddenly, on 34 mins, our new hero linked up with an old hero. Scocco’s pass was described as “extraordinary” by Record, and who am I to disagree? Great run from Parejita (“feline talisman”) and this great pass gave the little fella acres of space and time out on the right, he strolled into the box, took his time, had a look up, good enough and cool enough to easily rocket it past Omar “el gato” Ortiz, who, inexplicably, seemed to take his eye off the ball. The now familiar celebration for his son is always a joy to see.

This “gato” is a twat. He puts a lucha libre mask on, and sticks a ball up his jumper when Jaguares score and the highlight of this match was this celebration being interrupted when their goal was disallowed.

The second half, I was surprised to see Gonzalez and Scocco come off for Chupa López and Íniguex. But we can now call it tactical genius (Maybe). We had a much better second half, although for long periods you felt that if they scored, they would score twice. Bernal, who actually had little to do, kept us in it with a remarkable reaction save. As a cross came in Corona, about 8 yards out on the left caught it on the volley, as sweet as you like. Sergio had got himself into a good position, and at point blank range stuck out a hand to deflect the shot onto the bar. If he hadn’t made this save, I could see them going onto to win.

As the clock ran down they pushed more forward, and we got more defensive, minute 67 Moreno coming on for Reinaldo. However we had a couple of great chances to kill it off, on the break, but Íniguez and López failed to capitalise. But when de Assis Barbosa got his second yellow late on, the game was over.

All in all a dull game, but I’m not complaining. Great result for us. And although we were not convincing, we looked well organised, and concentrated throughout. The three yellow cards we got were not bookable, nor were theirs. More on this in a bit. Pikolin had …wait for it……. a good, solid game.

Marks out of 10 (these could be horribly wrong, so please correct me)

Bernal 7
Castro 6
Pikolin 6
Veron 6
Velarde 6
Diego 7
Leandro 6
Parejita 7
Reinaldo 7
Scocco 8
Gonzalez 7

SUBS
Lopez 7 (on for Gonzalez 46 min)
Íniguez 6 (on for Scocco 46 mins)
Moreno 6 (on for Reinaldo 67 min)

CARDS
22 min Velarde
37 min Leandro
50 min Parejita

GOAL:-
34 min… Pass from Scocco to Parejita in space, controlled it, entered the area and stuck past the keeper

Elsewhere in Mexican football:- The big polemic is over the referees, because for this jornada the big names returned, after a couple of weeks blooding new refs. In a round of fairly run of the mill games, without any real problems they contrived to give, during the 7 games of Saturday, FIFTY-NINE cards, NINE of which were red! Monterrey lost three players, the first of which, Arellano, no one seems to have any idea why he got a straight red. Arias, the DT of manager of San Luis, who lost again, said that he didn’t want to talk about the refs, because there are “always reprisals”, but that refs always come with a biased view of Ailton da Silva, (Marco Rodiguez gave him two yellows in less than 60 seconds) and the tragedy for Mexican football is, he is correct. Petty, inconsistent, officious, vindictive, card happy, ignorant, need I go on about refs here?

We gain ground on Santos (5 pts adrift now), and San Luis lose 1-0 again, and haven’t scored now for 490 minutes, we move up the percentage table, here are the bottom five:-
1.2394 Veracruz 88 from 71
1.2113 Santos 86 from 71
1.1408 PUMAS 81 from 71
1.1081 San Luis 41 from 37
0.000 Queretaro 0 from 3

Next week Toluca are coming to CU, and bringing one Sr Marioni He scored a brace V Queretaro, to give him 6 goals in 5 games for his new employers, and currently top scorer in the league with 4. John and I, at least, will give him a hot reception upon his return:- cover the ears of your kids…... Queretaro looked poor to be honest, and I felt that whilst a strong team, Toluca look like they may have organisation problems at the back we could exploit.