QPR have pulled off what looks to be another tidy piece of summer transfer business by landing impressive Chilean international wing back Mauricio Isla from Italian giants Juventus on a season long loan deal.
When the ever-watchable Chilean national side completely played England off the park at Wembley last November, national team boss Roy Hodgson lamented that the South American team was sso fluid, versatile, and intent on passing the ball to death that the "goalkeeper could play with number 10 on his back.”
Chile outclassed Spain at the World Cup during the summer and were desperately unlucky to be put out by the host nation Brazil in a penalty shoot out after an enthralling game in which they’d come the width of the crossbar away from winning the match in open play in the final minute of extra time. They’re hard working, technically excellent and incredibly versatile and Mauricio Isla fits the bill perfectly.
The 26-year-old can play central midfield, right back or, preferably, right wing back and it’s the latter position that he’s likely to fill at QPR in Rangers’ new three centre back formation.
He actually started life as a forward during eight years in the youth system at Santiago-based side Universidad Catolica without ever breaking through into the first team. His big break came in the Under 20 World Cup in Canada in 2007 where he caught the eye of scouts from Italian side Udinese who took a chance on him with a five-year contract before he’d even made his professional debut in the Chilean leagues.
hile finished third in that tournament with Isla scoring twice in a quarter final win against Nigeria — one of them from the penalty spot. He was called up for the senior squad for a friendly against Switzerland in September 2007 and started in the centre of midfield — again, before he’d actually made a single senior appearance at club level.
Isla finally made his Udinese debut in a cup match against Palermo in December 2007 and his Sere A bow against the same opposition three months later. In 2010/11 Udinese sold Simone Pepe and lost Dušan Basta to long term injury leaving Isla to cement the right wing back place as his own in a team that finished fourth in Serie A and qualified for the Champions League. He made 152 appearances and scored seven goals in five seasons with Udinese.
He has been a regular starter for Chile for the last four years. He started three of their four games at the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, and featured in all four at the most recent tournament in Brazil. He played in 13 of Chile’s 16 qualifying matches for the most recent World Cup — only one other Chilean played more. He has 51 caps and two international goals in total.
He signed for Juventus ahead of the 2012/13 season for £12.3m and quickly collected two Serie A title winner’s medals in his first two seasons with the club, as well as two Supercoppas. He made 29 appearances in his first season, teaming up with his international team mate Arturo Vidal, but only managed 18 last term and has moved in search of first team football. A number of those starts actually came on the left flank, as opposed to his favoured right.
Isla has signed a one year loan deal at Loftus Road with a view to a permanent transfer in a year’s time. He is the first Chilean ever to play for QPR and is now back in Italy securing a work visa having received international clearance and passed his medical.
"He’s a top player and we’re delighted to have him here. He showed his quality in the World Cup for Chile and it’s a great loan signing for us. He’s a versatile player, he’s full of energy. I’m confident he’ll be a really big asset for us this season.” - Harry Redknapp
"I am very happy to be here — this is the start of an exciting new adventure for me. Everybody knows that the Premier League is the greatest league in the world and the QPR proposal is very interesting and one I am very excited about. I hope this coming season is going to be great for both the club and myself. I will give 100 per-cent in every game to help QPR in the Premier League.” - Mauricio Isla
"Very early doors but I'm pretty happy with how Redknapp, Beard and Fernandes are approaching this season. Clear formation in mind, unlike Hughes, and so far we've signed some really good players who will all suit that system and really strengthen the areas in which we are weak. Nor have we panicked when we haven't got our first choices. It didn't look like we were getting Caulker, we looked at Lascelles. We missed out on Bryson, we're now after Mutch. Hopefully no more signing the likes of Mbia to play centre back, before playing him in central midfield for most of the season. Of course, we'll probably get tonked by Hull, end up resorting to 442 and bring in Crouch and Assou-Ekotto on deadline day now I've said that.” -WadR
"Love this signing. He can adapt to a back three or four. Energetic. Quality. Victim of squad depth at Juve, but hey....it's Juve! I'm hearing he'll soon become a dad. And finally someone to speak in Spanish with Alejandro. He'll have to prove it on the pitch, of course, but his resume suggests he should be an upgrade over Danny and the worst case scenario for us is that we have two good players fighting it out for a starting role. Isla can also be brought in in midfield, in case Matt Phillips is not around.” -QPR_Arg
Now here’s an interesting test case for this all new, much more sensible Queens Park Rangers set up.
On the face of it, Rangers have made another excellent signing. Mauricio Isla is only 26 and has extensive experience in Italy where he qualified for the Champions League during a five-year stay at Udinese, then won the title twice and played European football after a £12.3m move to Juventus. He was said to be interesting Liverpool earlier this summer, although that smacks rather of an agent getting a name out there to flush out realistic, genuine interest.
Once again this summer it’s an example of QPR buying a player to fit the specific system they want to use this season - Isla is perfect for the right wing back role in a three centre back set up — rather than simply grabbing a whole clutch of players they’ve heard of before and deciding later how they’re all going to fit into a team as they’ve been prone to doing previously. Rangers have pinpointed their weaknesses and are addressing them one by one with the targeted signings of high quality, young players. What is this sorcery?
In Isla’s case they haven’t even committed a great deal of money to the deal — securing the player initially on a season-long loan deal. Rather than looking to burn him in a post-relegation fire sale next summer the main problem with this deal could be fending off interest in his permanent signature in 12 months’ time if this move goes as well as it really should.
But QPR have made these ‘too good to be true’ signings before. This move bears a lot of similarities to the signing of Spanish midfielder Esteban Granero two years ago, who came with an excellent pedigree and ringing endorsements from Real Madrid, at a really good age, speaking well and saying all the right things. He started well for QPR but swiftly lost heart and form when it was clear things were not going as well as everybody hoped when he arrived. This is going to be a hard fought battle against the drop this year, if QPR start poorly how will Isla react?
Isla is also — like Granero, Julio Cesar, Ji-Sung Park, Jose Bosingwa and so on — a player who is moving from a world class club with a state of the art stadium and training complex that is regularly competing for all trophies on offer, to QPR and their ramshackle home ground and wind swept training facility borrowed from a college to fight relegation. This transition has proven too much for some and has been a red flag for transfers QPR have been apparently keen to avoid until now.
And he’s probably going to be replacing somebody who worked incredibly hard to get QPR into the Premier League. Danny Simpson had a superb first season at Loftus Road in the Championship last season, and is clearly a big character in the group. He will feel that he deserves his shot at the top flight having taken the chance of dropping down a league to move to Loftus Road in the first place. Simpson is a much more defensive full back, and struggles more with the rampant attacking and crossing side of a wing back role, so improving on him with Isla makes sense if we’re to change the system this season. Simpson could actually find himself used on the right of the central three, where he was a good deal better in the second half against Leyton Orient last week than he had been at right wing back in the first, but whatever role he is to fill it’s important that the situation is dealt with somewhat more deftly and sympathetically than Mark Hughes did during his time here — signing Rob Green and promising him he’d be number one only to then sign Julio Cesar six weeks later and tell Green to look for another club just one of many examples of his appalling man management.
QPR must tread carefully with Simpson not only to be fair to a vital member of the team from last season, who may yet have a big part to play this, but also to send the message out to other players that hard work, decent performances and commitment to the club will count for something even if an ostensibly better player becomes available in your position and is signed. Hopefully the competition for places will inspire both players to produce their best football, rather than demoralising one of them and sending out a poor message.
So one or two warning signs, but overall this seems like a tremendously positive signing to go alongside the captures of Jordon Mutch and Steven Caulker, both of whom I believe are ideal for QPR at the moment.
National generalisations are difficult to avoid when analysing various teams at a World Cup. Gordon Strachan spoke at length during ITV’s coverage about the Uruguayans making up for having a much smaller pool of players to select from by clearly wanting it more than their molly-coddled English counter parts because they’d been brought up in tough neighbourhoods and had to fight and scrap to earn a way out through football. Of course not all Uruguayans are wild, untamed, determined slum children fighting for a better living for a starving family, just as not all English teenagers are spoilt brat millionaires rushing around in fast cars and fancy Premier League academies, but the point did have merit.
The Chileans are particularly prone to stereotyping, although thankfully for QPR most of it is entirely positive. I’m sure there are some lazy, feckless Chilean footballers somewhere who couldn’t give a shiny shit and happily sit back and toss it off while earning big money for little return. If there are, they weren’t part of their hugely impressive World Cup squad which, but for a very unlucky defeat to Brazil, I thought were going to go all the way to the semi-finals. All technically superb, all working incredibly hard, all keen to pass the ball and maintain possession and attack at speed, all highly committed, all quick - Chile were a joy to watch and Isla is one of the first names on the team sheet for that side. Representing their country clearly meant so much to those players during the summer and in becoming the first Chilean to sign for QPR, and one of only a handful to have ever played in the Premier League, Isla is doing that once more in this move. Although rather unkind about his footballing ability ("bricks for feet") one Juventus correspondent told LFW earlier today that Isla would "spit blood from his lungs" for the cause, which all sounds rather ideal for what Rangers will need this season. He’s worked hard to get where he wants to be and has promised straight away that he will carry this ethic into his play for QPR.
Time will tell, but he looks like another excellent addition.
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