FOXBOROUGH, Mass. – Michael Mancienne has spent more than a few mornings chasing Carles Gil around the training ground, doing whatever he can to slow down the shifty playmaker.
Sometimes, he admits, it’s best to just give up the fight.
“He’s hard to tackle. You can’t get close to him,” Mancienne said, noting Gil’s low center of gravity at just 5-foot-7. “Sometimes in training when you see him twisting and turning and you’re trying to tackle him, you just let him have the ball – you just say, ‘Go on, have it, Carles.