Juan Carlos Osorio NOT going to Disney!

By BRIAN LEWIS

Franco Caraccio’s trial with the Red Bulls is over.

With Oscar Echeverry out for the season after knee surgery and Dane Richards sidelined possibly another month with a hip flexor, coach Juan Carlos Osorio’s team desperately need pace; and the 21-year-old Caraccio _ a technically-skilled Argentine support striker _ just doesn’t provide that.

“He’s a good player. I think he’s technically good; but we’re going to move in another direction. I have a well-defined profile of the player that we’re looking for and I would resist the temptation just to sign somebody just because of the fact he’s a good striker,’’ Osorio said. “We need a different type of striker at the moment.’’

A pacy kind of striker. That’s what he had in Altidore (sold) and that’s what he thought he had in Echeverry (hurt) and that’s what he thought he could turn Richards into.

“Somebody that can give us that extra 10 meters so we can get the best out of players like Jorge (Rojas), David (van den Bergh), Seth (Stammler), Sinisa (Ubiparipovic), Mike (Magee), because they need that space. We don’t have that threat in behind and it’s very difficult to create that space.

“That’s what (Altidore, Echeverry and Richards) bring to the table, amongst other things; pace and that threat of getting behind (the defense). At the moment, we don’t have that pace; we don’t have that threat. We’ve become very predictable and very easy to play against.’’

Too easy. Osorio cancelled his family visit to Disney this weekend and departs tomorrow on a scouting mission abroad. He says he has two targets in MLS and three more abroad, and said he’ll see all three of them play live this weekend. My guess is he’s going to the Caribbean championships, but I don’t know that for certain; but he’d surely have a shot at finding the athletic-type forward he needs down there.

But for the moment, speedy South African rookie Danleigh Borman may not be a striker, but he’s playing on at Red Bulls practice.

“We’re trying to teach him how to play as an attacker as opposed to a wide player. It’s not easy because now he plays in the middle, he’s more central and a lot of things have to be even sharper than it is on the flank,’’ Osorio said. “But I think he has shown some good signs and one of them is definitely his willingness to learn.”

Borman got 30 minutes at forward against Harrisburg at Giants Stadium, and started up top in a 3-5-2 in the game at Kansas City’s reserves last Tuesday in a 3-5-2 formation. He’s practiced as a support striker all week.

“It’s a different type of running you do: Big sprints and stuff, whereas in left midfield it’s up and down. You have less time on the ball because there’s always a man on your back,’’ Borman said. “I make the run into the spaces, which I don’t mind doing.”