Joseph Nane – The Man, The Myth, The Legend?

I think we're all glad that we're being proved wrong by Nane so far in 2012.

Prior to this season, Nane had only played 308 minutes for the team in 10 appearances, two of them starts. So far he's already beat that start count in 2012, and is on pace to snap that minutes record in several pieces. Earlier in the year we had seen hide nor hair of Nane but the Rapids brass was telling us that they liked him even as he continued to be thrown around in trade talks or releases by fans.I suppose they were doing some sort of work on improving his game, and so far it's done wonders. I suppose that's what happens when you get one of the best two-way midfielders in the history of MLS to coach you, but Nane has turned over a new leaf and is suddenly a lot more than the mediocre third string depth option we thought he was at the start of the season.

In the three starts he's been given, Nane has been a beast in the midfield minus a couple of the same sorts of errors that everyone else on the team was having in those games. His performance against Salt Lake showed what he should be doing on an ideal day — holding the midfield down in the middle third of the field and then being one of many possible links when the ball is won back.

We were clearly wrong about Joseph's potential under Smith, but we don't know if Nane can keep the form he's had up for more than three games. (Small sample size and all that, right baseball fans?) It's going to come down to how he looks at the end of the season with a few more games under his belt. Hopefully he'll keep it up, having him blossom into a success story under Oscar Pareja is certainly a great sign going forward in the new system.