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.