Football’s best teammate? Video of USA’s Luca de la Torre goes viral | OneFootball

Luca de la Torre showed during USA’s 5-1 win over Panama why he might deserve the title of best teammate in football right now.

The 23-year-old, who played a handful of games for Fulham after making his professional debut in 2016 before joining Dutch side Heracles Almelo four years later, is going viral on social media thanks to a brilliant analysis video.

Titled ‘Best teammate: Luca de la Torre’, it shows the midfielder protecting his teammates at all costs in various situations – not just from opponents but even from the match officials.

Christian Pulisic scored a hat-trick in the rout while Paul Arriola and Jesus Ferreira also netted for the United States, who now sit on the brink of qualification for the 2022 World Cup finals in Qatar.

Although De la Torre didn’t get on the scoresheet himself, his contribution over the course of the 90 minutes certainly wouldn’t have gone unnoticed or unappreciated by his teammates.

The midfielder stood up to referee Ivan Cisneros when the match official got involved in an exchange of words with Antonee Robinson.

And when USA were awarded a penalty 10 minutes later, it was De la Torre who protected Ferreira and then Pulisic from Panama’s players, who didn’t even have the chance to play mind games with the spot-kick taker.

De la Torre also made sure that he was first on the scene to prevent a potential altercation involving a couple of Panama players, Pulisic and the fourth official in the second half.

The narrator of the video, uploaded by @watke_ on Twitter, says: “It doesn’t really matter who you are, if you’re too close to his guy he doesn’t really respect your officialdom.”

De la Torre’s calmness in these situations is quite remarkable.

The narrator adds: “You’ll notice he does all of this with a completely blank expression. He has no personal emotions other than loyalty.”

Now that’s a player that every professional footballer would love to play alongside. What a teammate.

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