July 22nd, 2008 . 1:14 pm . By: Buzz Carrick

No, no, no, no. You gotta listen to the way people talk. You don’t say “affirmative,” or some s**t like that. You say “no problemo.” And if someone comes on to you with an attitude you say “eat me.” And if you want to shine them on it’s “hasta la vista, baby. – John Conor

I actually hadn’t planned to go out to training today and was just going to go on Thursday. But I found out late last night that the FCD Juniors were playing the FCD Reserves after the session so I trotted on up to Frisco.

Notably absent are Kenny Cooper and Juan Toja for the All-Star game. Given the various reports of a possible $1.5 Mil offer for Toja I don’t expect to see him in Dallas again.

News, Notes, & Observations

- Marcelo Saragosa is suspended for the FCD game this weekend due to yellow card accumulation.

- Ray Burse still in rehab mode… not looking good for this weekend.

- Bobby Rhine doing some full speed running, he’s looks ready to go and I would expect him to train with the team tomorrow. But I’m not a Physio.

- The FCD Juniors are going to play their Houston Dynamo counterparts prior to the LA game this weekend. Nice chance to see the young Red Stripes if you are interested in showing early for the Beckham show.

- Ricardinho looks fitter and more lively than he did a month ago and was fairly sharp today… but no goals came off of it in play. You gotta find the net kid.

- Gambian trislist Assan Jatta missed his flight… again… he finally made one today and Bobby Hammond went to pick him up around noon. Schellas joked that if he is right for FCD they will need someone to handcuff him to so he makes it on time everywhere.

- Trialist Victor Sikora is gone. More on him from Schellas below.

- I got to say hello to Oscar Pareja, so glad to see him back. He looked really happy to be here.

- Schellas told the first team to stay outside and support the reserves in their scrimmage.

Catching up with Schellas Hyndman

Please don’t forget the translations are a bit.

If the $1.5 Mil offer for Toja is correct, is that the end of his time in Dallas?

That’s a deserving number. He’s a great player and we would definitely miss one of our all-stars. I want what he wants and it might undermine my career. But I really believe that relationships between players and coaches are the same. It’s what can you do for the team? What can I do for the team? What can you do for yourself and what can I do for myself and maybe we can go the same direction. If it’s the best for Juan, I have always said I’ll support you. But there’s also a sense of obligation to this team and to the city to do well. It’s a fine line there but as always, I’ m very supportive.

Buzz’s Coach Speak Translator: Yes, we’re selling him…

What’s the status on Victor Sikora’s?

He had a trial with us and I thought he did very well. I was impressed with him. I like his maturity and ability to be on the flank. He could be one of the better servers of the ball that I’ve seen for a while to go right side, left side and so forth. But his trial is over. We’re trying to talk and see if we can maybe come to some type of agreement to bring him back.

Buzz’s Coach Speak Translator: …And signing Sikora.

Did you like Dax out wide, despite him being a more central player by nature?

Yes [he is more of a central player] along with the other seven. He drew the short straw, so we put him out wide. Dax is a versatile player. He’s got a great service. He’s got great vision. Is it his best position? I don’t think so but I really appreciate the efforts that he’s given to be out there. If we were able to come to terms with Victor or a player like that, maybe we would be able to solve that issue.

Buzz’s Coach Speak Translator: At this point he’s the best option we got.

Can you comment on Bruno Guarda signing with MLS, were you involved with that?

I have really been undercover on all of this as far as not involved. I have had a couple of phone calls from Bruno. I won’t deceive you that he hasn’t been in my mind or in my conversations. But I really didn’t feel like it was appropriate for the SMU coach now with FC Dallas trying to take SMU’s best player away from them. I’ve just been letting Bruno decide what his future is. He’s made a decision to come to the MLS and I believe there is a lottery today. I think we have like a 16% chance in the whole lottery structure of where we are that’s if everybody wants to be in the lottery. But it could bump up a little bit if everybody isn’t in it. I would love to have him here. I think he’s a very good player. I think he would help this team. How quickly he would adjust will be determined. But I see a lot of similarities between him and Eric [Avila]. They’re similar types of players: skillful, technical and have good vision. They’re also both enthusiastic and have that engine to help teams. We’re keeping our fingers crossed.

Buzz’s Coach Speak Translator: We already picked out a number for him.

On how much motivation the last LA game will be

That was pretty ugly, wasn’t it? I shared that with the team other day. I told them that we had LA coming up and the last time, they played so bad that it got the coach fired. I told them to not do that to me. I think their pride was hurt but we hope that they will see the seriousness and that we have to get better. We lost Marcelo [Saragosa] because of his fifth yellow, so we’re going to have to make some adjustments to how do we play and who do we play. I’ve got some preliminary ideas in my head.

Buzz’s Coach Speak Translator: I hope they don’t get me fired.

Any trouble spots when you look at LA?

The thing that really scares me is that when I watch LA, they’ve got so much firepower. If you give [Landon] Donovan too much space, he’ll tear those fullbacks apart by making diagonal runs and that scares me. [Edson] Buddle has been playing well and of course, they’ve got [David] Beckham and company. They’ve got a great attack force and what we need to do is find a way to score ourselves if we want to be in contention to win this game.

Buzz’s Coach Speak Translator: Beckham to Buddle and Beckham to Donovan.

Training

Warm up and then 10v10 in a 60×30 space with 8 little pole goals spread all over, pass through the goal to a teammates to score a point. Drill designed to press the pace and get everyone active. Not much to be seen in the teams, but here they are.

Red: Thompson, Ricardinho, Moor, Wallace, Wadsworth, Avila, Serioux, Shea, Davino, Oduro
Grey: Pitchkolan, Saragosa, Ricchetti, Daniels, Rocha, McCarty, Alvarez, Wagner, Wileman, Dello-Russo

Then a 30 yards short space drill with full goals and keepers. Two wide areas with a 1v1+a neutral for crosses, 7v7 in the middle. Emphasis on cross to near post crashing player or back post looping striker. Schellas stopped training again and again to point out what he called “the same stupid things we do in games.”

Red: Rocha, Wallace, Moor, Davino, Serioux, Ricchetti, Wadsworth, Ricardinho, Oduro
Grey: Wileman, McCarty, Thompson, Shea, Dello-Russo, Saragosa, Wagner, Pitchkolan, Daniels.
Blue (wide neutrals): Avila and Wileman

and that was it for the day…

Scrimmage: Reserves vs. Juniors

No numbers on jerseys for either team, Juniors in red, FCD in grey. 30 minute halves. Reserves in a 3-5-2, Juniors in a modern 4-3-3. FCD Reserves wins 2-1.

FCD Reserves (3-5-2)

- Abe Thompson scored both goals for FCD. One a header off a corner, one in open play created by Wadsworth and Avila with a touch on from Wileman.

- Nice game by Dello, he’s much more aggressive under Schellas.

FCD Juniors (4-3-3)

Best I can do with the names, apologies if I get one wrong. The center three are the most likely that I got mixed up. FCD PR called it a 4-4-2 but I saw what looked like a modern 4-3-3.

- Best Juniors player for me today was Nate Dombrowski (I think). Great touch, active and energetic, and savvy movement and ability to turn wrong foot a defender. A FCD player even remarked about him as being a “player.” The Juniors goal came off his work and shot… it was deflected and bounced around and played into net by Chase Wileman, technically an own goal I suppose, but Dombrowski was the creator.

- Gabriel Funes led the Metroplex in goals last year in high school soccer with 39, he was second in assists with 28 (don’t quote me on the #s).

- London Woodberry is also a forward in high school and scored the fourth most goals in the Metroplex, I’m told, with 33. Note he’s a defender here, but Drew Moor was also a goal scoring machine in high school… hell almost everyone in MLS was a goal scoring machine in high school.

- There was an interesting mix of young suburban league type moms in swanky cars and Hispanic dads in normal cars watching the Juniors game.

Lineup Prediction

Ok Saragosa is out, so there are some options…

1. Move Dax back in the middle and play Arturo wide. This is my best guess.
2. Start Avila in Saragosa’s spot? Avila will play some defense, but is that enough to satisfy Schellas?
3. Play Wallace in Saragosa’s spot.
4. Move Rocha back in the middle and put Rhine wide right. Not highly likely with Bobby just getting back to playing…. maybe.
5. Drop Toja back and start Avila in the high mid spot. (Will Toja be back?)
6. Serioux into midfield, with Wagner in the back. Schellas discounted this one citing LA offense.

I’m sticking with Dax in the middle and Arturo wide. Cooper back. Toja back? Maybe. Not much else changes.

Thought of the Day

Without getting into a player by player breakdown of the Juniors, you can see there is some potential there. But let’s be realistic, of this current group of eighteen (or however many) two of them at best might make it to MLS. In fact two would be a tremendous success and would validate the program. Oscar called this the starting point to see where the club is and go from there.

Colin Clarke told me a story once about the 40 guys in his age group at his club coming up. He said two of the 40 made it to the first team and that was for an established academy program. He also said it wasn’t the two you would have picked at 12 or 14 to make it.

Point being that it’s a long way from here to the pros, but there is a chance for these kids to learn from the very best we’ve seen here in Oscar Pareja. This program is a fantastic step in the right direction for the team and community.

I really hope I’m wrong though and more than two make it, but I wouldn’t hold my breath.

Categories: Practice Observations.

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