FOXBOROUGH, Mass. – Franco Coria's path to New England started with a compilation of his best work.
Coria's game tape landed among the plethora of clips and videos submitted to the Revolution's technical staff last year. Most of those snippets do not entice the Revs to follow up on the player, but Coria's offering sparked some interest as the club continued its search for defensive reinforcements.
The selection of highlights included positive spells of play against the likes of Boca Juniors, Estudiantes and River Plate from Coria's time in the Argentine first division.
It isn't every day that an MLS side can uncover an available 22-year-old prospect with top flight experience in Argentina, so Revolution assistant coach Steven Myles traveled to South America to assess the situation in person.
“We knew at that age, there's got to be at least some sort of ability for him to be playing at that level,” Myles said. “On seeing that, we decided that we'd go down and have a look at him. We went down, had a look and we liked what we saw.”
Although Coria piqued the Revolution's interest with his limited first-division experience, he and his club, Chacarita Juniors fell out of the first division following the 2009-10 season. With Coria floating in and out of the team over the past couple of years, there were also questions about whether he had built the necessary match sharpness.
[inline_node:328918]
Myles watched Coria feature in Chacarita's first team in a couple of friendlies and confirmed the defender would be worth pursuing.
“It certainly wasn't a case of going to have a look at a reserve team player,” Myles said. “It was a case where we were looking at someone who has played in a number of games, and a number of games against the big teams. He'd experienced that type of game and been OK with it, so it was just a case of going down and making sure what we saw on tape was what we were seeing live.”
Coria's initial performances since joining the Revs have further bolstered those beliefs. A rugged defender with a desire to play the ball out of the back, Coria has worked his way toward the top of a crowded central defensive depth chart since joining up with the team.
Revolution coach Steve Nicol has partnered Coria with rookie A.J. Soares in the past few friendly matches. As the partnership continues to settle and Coria adjusts to the rigors of MLS, the Argentine defender is expected to show why the Revs were so intrigued by his game tape, according to Nicol.
“Him and AJ have just started playing together, so they're going to take a wee bit of time getting to know each other,” Nicol said. “He likes to pass the ball and he's a really strong boy. The more comfortable he gets with everybody, the better he'll get.”
