3rd Degree

October 29th, 2008 . By: Buzz Carrick

“Every man’s life ends the same way. It is only the details of how he lived and how he died that distinguish one man from another.” - Ernest Hemingway

With the season over you might think there aren’t a lot of reasons to go to training this week.  Oh contraire my friends, there are plenty of reasons.  First we get to see what the coach is starting to think about next year, second we (ok, I) get to talk to the coach more one on one and learn some very interesting things, and third…. it’s fun.  Let’s face it, the weather doesn’t get any better than this for me to bring the Jeep out.  What would you rather have done today, sit inside and work, or go to FCD training.

Yes, I know.  My life doesn’t suck.

News, Notes, & Observations

- Josh Hernandez of the FCD Juniors is in camp for a week in build up to joining the next U20 camp (with Lambo and Wallace).  Now this is the kind of youth training with the first team I want to see.

- Eric Avila and Bruno Guarda are joining a Generation adidas team that will be going to London from Dec 12 to 14.  They are going to play 3 games and take in some Champions League action.   Lambo and Wallace were also to be included until they got the U20 calls.

- Jeff Rowland is out with the team and running rehabbing on the side.

- During keeper crossing drills Ray Burse scored on a bicycle kick.  Impressive athlete.

- Schellas says they are “very close” to a new deal with Sala.

- Marcelo Saragosa’s procedure on his knee went well it appears.  I asked about his green card and Schellas said, “it’s probably just best to say we’re working on it.”

- Here’s some of the college scouting break downs…  Schellas is going to watch the Big Ten and Ellinger the ACC.  They will split the west coast stuff: the Pac 10, WCC, and Big West.  Ferruzzi is going to take in the Conference USA and Big East.  Drew Keeshan will be scouting the NAIA and DII.

- After that Schellas (and maybe Elligner too) are going to Argentina the first week of December to look at some River Plate players.  Then it’s off to CAP for four or five days.  Then the third week of January it’s Ghana to look at some younger players.  Also mixed in there somewhere will be Europe.

 - FCD is still working on a post season game, possibly for November 12th.  It might not be for any kind of gate, just a scrimmage with a pro team.  Schellas says they want three 45 minute halves so the entire squad can play.

- The two players from Norway Schelllas mentioned last week won’t come into camp if FCD can’t get said game set up.  If they do come it will be on the 4th or 5th of November.  Schellas said he couldn’t ye say who they are cause of contract/season end stuff with their current/former teams.

- Victor Sikora is trying to work out a new deal and says he’s meeting with “ownership” in the next week to talk about it.  Some of the younger players have started calling him “Fajer” like Goldmember calls his “father” in the Austin Power movie of the same name.  You can occasionally hear a “I love GGOOLLDD” come across the field as well.

- Break Shea is doing well in rehab Schellas says.  The coach says there is massive upside there if he will embrace the center back spot where he could be both extraordinary.  He’s right about that actually.

- Staying out for a post training mini-game: Wagner, Hernandez, Watson, Ferruzzi, Wallace, Cunningham, Oduro, Wileman, Wadsworth.

- Cunningham and Wadsworth are the last two players out training almost 30 minutes after the session ended.  This is not your father’s Jeff Cunningham.

- Schellas spent extra time work with Avila in the defense drills.  He was really hammering the kid on this part of his game and making him take turn after turn, even skipping other players to do so.  To me that says Schellas sees a ton of potential in young Mr. Avila if he can just get him to improve that defense.

Catching up with Schellas Hyndman

It was myself and Steve Hunt at training today, most of my questions were about stuff I listed above and some off season type things.  So here are a couple questions that won’t spoil the stuff I’m working on. 

Again, don’t let it slip your mind that the coach speak translations are a bit.

Can you talk about the seven red cards this year, a team record?

I think it’s a bad tradition here to get the cards. I’ll take it a step farther. Watching from afar and remembering games, it always seems to be the FC Dallas and Dallas Burn under pressure games, would self destruct with cards. You have the thing, you’re winning, playing at home, have the better team and you self destruct. That’s players that need to sort things out. If you foul because you can’t defend, it’s going to catch up with you. Nobody ever tries to get the second yellow but it’s a tendency.

A straight red is something where you can really go at the player and ask them what they were thinking and why would they do that? The yellow cards, the players are almost trying to justify, well he was getting by me, I had to grab him but it shouldn’t have been a yellow. It costs you a player and costs you a game. In the last two games, we have had two players with two yellows. Both games were games I thought we could have won and jeopardized our opportunities to get into the playoffs. It’s something we have to address.

Buzz’s Coach Speak Translator:  Mental toughness is hard to coach up.

Can you give us an evaluation of Victory Sikora?

You  know, I don’t think we’ve ever seen the best of Victor. I think when he got here early, he wasn’t match fit and he worked awful hard. Then, he gets hurt against Kansas. The best we saw with Victor was his recovery. The guy was a demon. He worked out so hard and knew he had to get on the field. When he got on the field, there still wasn’t that sharpness but he’s a true pro and he worked hard for us. I don’t think we’ve seen the best of him.”

Buzz’s Coach Speak Translator:  Ask me again in a month.

Dario Sala is in process of getting a new deal, can you talk a bit about his season?

For us, I thought he was solid. I thought he was a solid keeper. He’s someone we want to keep here. Also what helped him was putting four in the back because he was just so exposed so much. Even with four in the back, you saw what Beckham did to us with the diagonal balls, changing the point of attack and dropping balls into the box. Dario came out a couple of times to smother those and one time, got called for the PK. But those balls shouldn’t be coming in there, there needs to be pressure on the server. I think he’s been good for us. I think he’s improved on his positioning. The balls that are coming across, he’s starting to use his body to at least punch the balls out and I don’t think he was doing a lot of that previously.”

Buzz’s Coach Speak Translator:  Dario is money, we’re keeping him around.

Now that the season is over, in hind sight can you evaluate Guarda’s performance for us?

Well, you have to understand, Bruno is a player that I know very well. What a lot of people don’t understand, why go with a Bruno over a Dax? Why go with Bruno over an Eric? Because I know Bruno and if I would go with Eric or Dax, I would have to play with three in the back because there’s no way either of them could have helped Pablo. You can go to Pablo and ask him who he wants to play in front of him and he would say Bruno because he knows Bruno is going to work, he knows Bruno is going to track men, he knows Bruno is going to try and win tackles.

Is Bruno better than Dax and Eric in the offensive play? Probably not. But I would hope that you saw what I saw, that he got better as the year went on with playing time, with his sharpness and his conditioning. If we would’ve stayed in the 3-5-2, I don’t think he would’ve been on the field as much as he was.”

Buzz’s Coach Speak Translator:  Defense wins championships, Bruno plays defense, therefore Bruno plays. If Avila played defense he would be starting.

Training

Interesting day in that we saw a basic skill work up in the drill rotation today.  One simple basic skill like you might see at a U12 session.  It’s uncommon to see something like this in FCD training.  It’s only happened a couple times before.  All the drills were about basic one v one defending with a attacker running at the defender.  Each drill was a progression in the sequence and all emphasis was on the defender.

First step was basic one v one in a ten year alley.  Then a neutral player was added wide for a give and go type situation.  Next was a longer run to make it more at pace, then a added “clearance” by the defender as it a turnover or bad clear had been made.

Just for fun the final game was a 60 yard game with two balls at once.  Schellas said it was a fun game to end training on a positive note. End to end running, lots of shouting and laughing.  Good times for all.

Lineup Prediction

Well… since the season is over… there isn’t really much point.

Thought of the Day

It’s interesting to me to see Schellas working the team on something that is a very basic principle.  It’s not the first time he’s done it.  I firmly believe there is a deficiency in the US system when professional players came up their entire career being star players.  They are never asked to do simple basic tactical things right.  Schellas seems to be willing to work through this area. 

I think there is a contrast there, perhaps cause he’s an American coach, compared to the last two coaches here.  Clarke and Morrow seemed to think players should know certain things and if they didn’t know them would just move them on or ignore it.  Perhaps they were thinking that by this time in their career the player should have learned it and if they hadn’t it must be a deficiency in the player.  Schellas seems determined to fix some of the players and perhaps thinks they may have missed out on some things in their coaching background. 

It’s an interesting idea, the possible different point of views.

Or maybe I’m reading to much into it.

Categories: Practice Observations .

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