Back in early June, Borek Dockal was beginning to figure out MLS defenses. His numbers were already at the level of Tranquillo Barnetta — the prototype midfielder Union brass would have gladly cloned — and he was in the midst of exposing Real Salt Lake at Talen Energy Stadium and finding holes in the best defense in MLS at Red Bull Arena.
Now, quite deservedly, Dockal is the MLS Player of the Week.
Since that breakout match against RSL when he had a goal and two assists, Dockal has been a man unleashed. He sized up MLS, delivering a consistent stream of body and head shots ever since; the rest of 2018 will be a cat-and-mouse game between the Czech playmaker and the rest of the league as they seek to target his weaknesses and slow him down.
From RSL on, Borek Dockal has been an elite MLS player, full-stop. Let’s review, with numbers from AmericanSoccerAnalysis:
Fourth in the league in xG+xA per match. (That’s Expected Goals (xG) — a stat that assesses the likelihood of his shots going in — plus Expected Assists (xA) — the xG of all shots resulting from a single player’s passes.) That’s nearly double New York Red Bulls’ supercreator Kaku’s output over the same period, and the NYRB man likely cost over $6 million to sign.
One of only three players at least four Key Passes — passes that lead to a shot — per match.
One of only three players averaging at least 0.5 xA per match.
To be sure, Dockal has weaknesses. He’s not especially fast or strong, and he doesn’t do anything particularly quickly. But the beauty of soccer is best distilled to this: There is a place for anyone if you identify and lean into what you’re good at. Borek Dockal? He’s smart, and he doesn’t mind work. If he were an absurd athlete to boot, this might be enough to put him into top European leagues. But he’s not, so he’s left turning MLS defenses into quivering messes.
Since RSL, Dockal is fourth in the league in combined Expected Goals plus Expected Assists. That means he is putting himself in positions to finish or create chances at an incredibly high rate.
And even though his goalscoring exploits brought him the recognition needed for Player of the Week, it’s far from the most impressive part of the Czech man’s game. What makes Dockal fit so well with the Union is so simple as to be easily overlooked: He’s very, very smart on the pitch.
A common refrain Union fans have heard from Jim Curtin over the past few years is that he wants his best players to receive the ball in immediately useful positions. Those players are, right now, Ale Bedoya, Haris Medunjanin, and Borek Dockal. Nobody on this list is particularly fast, physical, powerful, or even technical (though all have danced through a tackle or three this season, to be sure). But they are all extremely intelligent soccer players. Bedoya’s time on the US National Team was one of constantly being the last name on fans’ teamsheets but the first on the coach’s. Medunjanin should be limited by his mobility, but he moves so well off the ball and reads the intentions of defenders so quickly that he never needs to lean on athleticism.
Dockal, the final piece of the midfield puzzle, fits the same mold. He does not have the standout technique of Ilsinho or the rocket-fueled shooting of Roland Alberg, the players that filled his role a year ago, but he is vastly more skilled at reading defenses and creating space with timed movements.
Also, all three players put in work in practice and on gameday; they recognize that while hyper-elite athletes can be blind to the power of daily, repetitive work, they cannot.
Whether Dockal can continue at this superb clip remains to be seen, but the fact that he can reach such levels already puts him in shouting distance of the best seasons any Union creator has ever had.
And it’s still June.
