A Scouting Report for Nick Lima
We spoke to Austin FC reporter Phil West from Verde All Day to get a scouting report on the latest addition to the Revolution squad.
According to The Athletic (a move first reported by Moontower Soccer podcast), Nick Lima will be joining the Revs to provide some much needed depth at right back. The Blazing Musket spoke with
from to get some insight on Lima.(Make sure to subscribe to Verde All Day for all your Austin FC news)
TBM: What is the reaction from Austin fans about Lima being traded to the Revs?
Phil West: I think they understand just how much Austin FC needs to remake its roster, and that Lima's one of the most tradeable assets that the club has. Getting him for a reported $275k in GAM sounds like a decent move for a team that's trying to mount a great remaking along the lines of what Houston and Atlanta did last offseason.
Lima's been with the club since before the first match in 2021, and though his contract is a mystery — he's one of the first players who was signed, and the club's been more transparent about contract lengths since then — many of us are assuming he had just one more year on the contract and wasn't long for Austin. He's been a solid contributor, but a different sort of fullback than Jon Gallagher, and I think Austin fans would love to clone a Gallagher to partner with the real Gallagher if they could.
Oh, also, as I covered here today, going a little bit into how Lima stacks up against Gallagher, some Austin fans would love the club to roll the dice on Sergiño Dest:
TBM: What stands out about Lima's play? How did he perform during his time in Austin?
West: He performed just fine. My friends at Moontower Soccer describe him as "sixes across the board," and that's a fair assessment. He can defend some, distribute some, and was one of the fastest players on Austin FC, but Austin FC doesn't have a particularly fast roster, which is one of the concerns prompting Rodolfo Borrell's expected overhaul. He only scored his first goal in Verde this season, despite some occasional attempts from distance when he was juuuuuuust a bit outside.
But he's a perfectly capable fullback you can run out for a full 90 without worrying about major mistakes. He's also spelled at center back, and while that's been less successful, he can do that if your center back pool is decimated with injuries, like Austin's was this season.
TBM: What should Revolution fans expect from Lima?
West: He's a pretty low-key boring jock who will work hard and put in capable-to-pretty good shifts every time he comes on. It's a little ironic that he's coming to the Revs in the post-Arena era. Remember that he was a fringe USMNT player a few years ago and he's a seasoned MLS veteran who knows the league. In other words, he's just the sort of player Arena tended to bring to the Revs over the last few years.
TBM: What are his strengths and weaknesses?
West: His one secret strength is that he's really adept at long throws. If you win a throw-in near the box and let Lima zing in it, it's almost as good as a corner kick. He's generally satisfactory at defensive actions and he's decent in advancing play, and aside from the occasional ill-advised shots, is dependable to make level-headed decisions.
TBM: Anything else we should know?
West: His wife just had a baby in the middle of last season, so we were a bit on the lookout for sleep deprivation and even asked him about it in an interview last year. He said something along the lines of his wife was doing a lot of the work so he was managing fine. I don't expect that to be as much of a factor this year as his kid's aging into a normal sleeping schedule. He's not the most quotable guy — you might even be able to make the argument he's the least quotable guy — but he'll be a solid if not sexy or spectacular addition to a squad that could use more normalcy.