Football Manager Live man to watch: Mexico's Andres Guardado

By Mirror Football in 2010 World Cup Blog

Published 12:46 11/06/10

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Hello to all MirrorFootball readers – my name is Miles and I’m the gaffer at Sports Interactive, the team responsible for the Football Manager series of games.

To celebrate both the World Cup and the addition of a new multiplayer game, Football Manager Live , to the Football Manager family, MirrorFootball and ourselves have partnered up to come up with some players to watch out for in the World Cup that you might not have heard of before, using our huge global scouting network and the famous FM database.

We’re going to be looking at a player for each World Cup team during the first round of the tournament, and have something else lined up for the following rounds.

Mexico’s players mainly play locally, partly due to the healthy wages that are paid in the Mexican league, therefore they likely have a lot of players that you haven’t heard of before, unless, of course, you already play the Football Manager games, in which case you’ve likely signed some of them!

It’s difficult picking out just one player from the Mexican squad to watch out for, but I’ve gone for one of the few who doesn’t play in Mexico: Andres Guardado.

Guardado is a 23 year old left winger and wing back who currently plays for Deportivo La Coruna in Spain who used to play for Atlas in Mexico before moving to Deportivo in 2007, where he’s scored 10 goals in 81 appearances, which isn’t a bad return for a winger.

Despite his young age, he’s already won 55 caps for Mexcio, scoring 8 times and although his squad number for the World Cup (18) could hint that he won’t be starting for them, it also happens to be his squad number at Deportivo, so maybe it’s just his favourite number!

He’s a very exciting player going forward, with his pace rated as 16 out of 20 by our Mexican research team and acceleration of 15 out of 20. He’s got a great touch for a small lad at 14 out of 20, 16 for “flair”, so expect a few tricks, and decent crossing skills of 13 out of 20.

Expect him to get stuck in when he’s needed to track back, with bravery of 14 and a work rate of 17. Although don’t expect him to score with any headers, as he’s not helped with his height of 5’6 and a half “, and a heading rating of 6 out of 20, and jumping of 6 too.

Whilst you’re going to get to watch him in the flesh in World Cup, you could also sign the virtual Guardado at your very own football club in Football Manager Live , where you are the owner of the club, as well as the manager, and play against up to 1,000 other virtual club owners around the world, all for the price of a couple of pints a month."

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