Joao Plata may only be 24 years old, but he has already seen his share of ups and downs in his Major League Soccer career.
From a rocky start in Toronto, to skyrocketing success with a change of scenery at Real Salt Lake, to losing the better part of a season to injury and now to his latest rejuvenation, Plata has kept one thing constant – his contagious enthusiasm. Along the way he made his way into Ecuador’s National Team picture and with his home country taking part in Copa America this summer, his rekindled goal-scoring touch couldn’t come at a better time.
It could be argued that nobody in MLS had a better week than Plata. On the same week that he celebrated his 24th birthday, he scored a goal in Real Salt Lake’s first home match of the season against Tigres UANL in a very difficult CONCACAF Champions League clash that saw RSL losing 3-1 on aggregate to one of the top teams in the Western Hemisphere. Then on Sunday he scored two goals in the first MLS match of the season for the Claret-and-Cobalt, a 2-2 draw with Orlando City SC.
Those matches signaled the return of the explosive scorer that was named Real Salt Lake’s MVP in the 2014 season after scoring a team-high 13 goals. That has been the apex thus far of his meteoric rise from MLS-hopeful in the 2011 MLS SuperDraft. In that year, MLS expanded the draft to include select young players from abroad. Plata was the only one selected in the 2011 draft and quickly found himself pining for his home country when he started his rookie season in the cold Canadian winter in Toronto. Despite notching three goals and five assists as a 19-year-old in his rookie campaign, he longed for home and spent the second half of 2012 with LDU Quito in Ecuador.
Upon his return to MLS, he sought a new home with Real Salt Lake. There he tallied four goals and eight assists in 2013 before finding his rhythm and confidence in his spectacular 2014 season. All that promise and a retooled formation for RSL had things looking up for the undersized Plata in 2015, but a fractured fifth metatarsal in the opening training session of preseason sidelined him until late May and he was never able to find the form that made him so dangerous in 2014.
Now, through three matches in 12 days, he has three goals for RSL and General Manager Craig Waibel can already see not just glimpses of the old Plata, but an improved version.
“I think the first thing is that he’s finishing his looks. If you go back and, once he got healthy and you look at the games he played, he actually did have chances. Finding the back of the net is sometimes a confidence thing,” Waibel said on ESPN 700’s On Frame on Monday. “The two goals that he scored Wednesday and Sunday in the run of play – nearly identical runs off the back shoulder on a wide ball expecting the service. A timid forward – a forward that isn’t scoring goals and isn’t confident at the time – kind of stands and waits for the ball to come to him or maybe makes a half-hearted run. Right now his movements toward goal are very sharp. They’re very confident. And they’re very optimistic.”
That positivity has been present throughout the attack through three matches, although Plata has been the only one to find the back of the net. But with players like Yura Movsisyan, Juan Manuel Martinez and Javier Morales, more goals can’t be far behind.
“I think we’re putting him in better positions,” Waibel said. “I think our possession from our front six is drastically improved from last year and that’s a big, big piece of getting these guys into positions to score.”
Plata and his frontline teammate will look to continue to build on their strong form on Saturday in RSL’s MLS home opener against Seattle Sounders FC. Kickoff is scheduled for 2 p.m. MT from Rio Tinto Stadium.
