4218: MLS Diary- Dispatches From Bra
by : Bill Urban
Blag a way past the security guard : “Yes, of course I am on the approved press list. I’m here to watch the soccer game.” Neither is there a press list nor is there a scrimmage. But DC United do train this morning in unseasonably nippy Bradenton, alongside Kansas City, Chicago, and Columbus. Four professional teams, four fields, four training sessions, a plethora of pre-seasons, as it were.
Feel the bitter wind whip across freshly manicured pitches; so much for warm weather training. A stray gull soaring overhead sounds a raucous caw, perhaps mocking the late arrival engendered by Byzantine Bradenton street squares. Scurry along a crushed-shell pathway, following the smack of ball meeting synthetic surface, an age-old, updated for modern shoe “technology,” training clarion call.
Slip unobtrusively along the massive nets separating soccer pitch from golf driving range. Four teams, blue, black, yellow and red, blisters of color swirling across verdant pitches made heavy by a previous day’s rainfall. Players dart in every direction, sharp cuts spraying water and divots of pitch, two touches permitted, a single one preferred, three or more a dilettante indulgence. Tight space made tighter by constant pressure, the overwhelming impression the sheer pace of every single thing, quick players, quicker passing, and most importantly, the quickest of decisions, best made long before the ball arrives.
No time for fannying about or expressing oneself; players committing the greatest sin in modern soccer, “getting caught in possession,” draw hoots of derision from their teammates and the occasional rebuke from various and sizable coaching staffs.
A full Wizards scrimmage surges back and forth on Field #1. United play keep-away on half a pitch, large numbers, small space, while Facundo Erpen, Ben Olsen, Clyde Simms and Josh Gros jog in a desultory, disinterested manner across the other half, back and forth, aloof by their very exclusion, excused from the frantic precision pinball of keep-away to recover from the previous day’s scrimmage against New York. The Crew play brisk games of 5 v. 2, while the furthest field is a-Fire with a finishing activity, the last item on Chicago’s training agenda.
Constant chatter on all four pitches, “left shoulder, step up, turn, change the wide players, careful Namoff,” the last following a tackle from the United defender that left teammate a-sprawl on the muddy surface, the over-exuberant nature of the challenge acknowledged by an apologetic raised hand.
On Field #1, the shock-white glare of Kevin Hartman’s hair, while on Field #3, Frankie Hejduk works his way back to fitness, mop-top locks flying in his wake as he giggles his way through a slalom drill. Dave Sarachan stands a lonely figure at the top of the 18 on Field #4, laying off balls for finishing, leaves one a bit too high, only for it to be looped in tantalizing, volleyed parabola over the despairing leap of the keeper, drawing whoops of admiration from teammates and coaching staff alike.
United scrimmage with neutral wide players, and Bobby Boswell, pushed forward into inside-left position, cuts the ball between David Stoke’s legs, the dreaded nutmeg, and smashes it past Troy Perkins. Is that Jimmy Conrad in full voice? Crew assistant Robert Warzycha, playing 5 v. 2 and looking fit to go a full ninety, does something difficult to describe, a sort of now-you-see-it, now-you-don’t, wickedly whipping ball away from a despairing challenge by the puke-green bibbed defender, frantic to escape the no-man’s land of the middle.
The Fire finish first; barefooted, boots clutched in one hand, unmindful of the chill, a hobbling Chris Rolfe in deep conversation with Justin Mapp towering over him. The annoying, singsong drone of the South American gentleman also watching training, desperate to convince his colleague of the worthiness of his “contacts in the East.” Hartman precisely punting the ball fifty yards to a teammate in repeat fashion. Ben Olsen, surely bored by not training, dunking balls into the ball-bag in increasingly complicated and extravagant manner as United finish training. Sigi Schmid has the Crew circled around him in classic recreational coach-is-talking-pay-attention mode. United drift off the pitch, the “made” players in full strut, reserves and rookies tending to goals, balls, most of which Olsen has gleefully already dispatched, and cones. Erpen and Jaime Moreno together carry a cooler; MLS preseason training converts Jaime Moreno into a water-carrier, someone inform Eric Cantona.
No battles with the legislature, no guaranteed seat licenses on offer for pre-season, nary a bottle of Sierra Mist to be found, no piggy-backing on competitions outside the Major League Purview, and it is in fact possible to watch teams train and play matches both without knowing the precise number of assists with which individual players have been credited or the date and location of their respective collegiate experiences.
And no David Beckham.
Imagine that...
