OSCAR
Oscar 22 Midfielder Chelsea Brazil
2013 has been…
Good, not spectacular per se, but good is enough for the moment and there are signs that 2014 could be a huge year for both club and country.
Some will go immediately to the bottom, look at the mark and question if it should be higher - he deserves a B surely? The reality is this; over the last 12 months for his international football alone it could be higher, but these reports look at 2013 as a whole and while he has started the season for Chelsea in good form and with his manager proclaiming him as the club’s form player on more than one occasion, the first half of the year was not all plain sailing. The working summer spent at the Confederations Cup was superb, the six months before that were okay without ever troubling anything approaching a really dizzying high.
On the good ship Rafa he was often either the first man substituted or a sub himself (in 35 appearances he only completed a full 90 minutes 15 times). His form was good and he got plenty of time on the pitch, but those standout man-of-the-match performances that take a player to a B or higher were few and far between. Lots of ‘good’ but perhaps not enough ‘really, really good’ to take him to the next level. There was always something of the ‘more-to-come’ from Oscar in a Chelsea shirt in the first half of the year, and it may well prove to have been a really well spent six months slowing down a little and learning his craft.
Don’t get us wrong, there is nothing wrong with a consistent 6 or 7 out of 10 every week, but in reality Oscar suffers under comparison with…well, Oscar. We’ll explain a bit more below.
What next?
As we all know the Premier League is the best watched blah, blah, blah and we’re all addicts, so therefore we’ve all seen a lot of Oscar. We know he is capable of the sublime – the breakthrough and impact at Sao Paulo, the hat-trick in the U20 World Cup final in 2011, stunning goals for Chelsea against Juventus and Shakhtar, 26 caps (at the time of writing) for the full Brazilian national side already – so when he’s not over-performing there’s a danger of feeling like he’s not doing enough.
This is nonsense as you have to remember he’s still only 22. To put that in perspective and relate it to his mark, perhaps the official IBWM definition of his grade says it better than I can – ‘C+ = Signifies the player is outperforming and while not quite ready for a higher mark, is progressing better than we had expected when the list was originally released’. He is coming along brilliantly, a C+ is a very good and very fair mark in this instance, he is going to be a wonderful player for many, many years to come.
He’s 22 and a regular for Chelsea and Brazil with both manager’s raining praise and expectation on him, plus he has a World Cup to look forward to in the summer – not a bad old life is it? Oscar’s potential is massive and Jose seems to be in love, they might just turn out to be perfect for one another.
“Jose loves him and for his favoured counter-attacking style, Oscar seems to be tailor-made. If I had to criticise him I suppose I’d say having seen his potential I would like to see him score more often, but this is one player I’m really looking forward to watching play with the rest of the Seleção at the World Cup” – David Hartrick, IBWM
"If 2012 was the year Oscar burst onto the big time, then 2013 was the year he consolidated his status. At club level he has become an integral part of the Chelsea side under Jose Mourinho and continues to impress for Brazil." - Christopher Atkins, The Elastico
"Oscar has scored six goals and assisted three more in just 10 career Champions League appearances." - Opta
C+ Jose’s main man, needs to take that opportunity and run with it
