May 20th, 2009 . 5:06 pm . By: Buzz Carrick

Though this be madness, yet there is method in ‘t. Will you walk out of the air, my lord?- Lord Polonius

Such a nice day today that I broke out the Jeep again.  This is the strangest spring, but I do love this cooler weather we’ve had this year.  I’d probably trade the nice temps for a FCD winning record though.  This is a lot more fun when the Red Stripes are good.

News, Notes and Observations

- No sign of Dario Sala, George John or Steve Purdy outside.  All are rehabbing somewhere.  Sala should be about two weeks out from return.  Purdy two weeks as well perhaps.  John will be closer to a month it sounds like.

- Jeff Cunningham comes out and does some ropes type stuff with one of the trainers.  So he might be a week out or so.

- “Tom” Sanchez is bring a little more intensity today, I won’t be shocked if Sanchez makes his debut this week, probably off the bench for Rocha, Ferreira, or one of the strikers.  He did a little extra explosiveness work along with Torres and Saragosa using one of the elastic rope belts.

- Kenny Cooper and Peri Marosevic last two out today.

- Kyle Davies continues to impress me with his soccer brain, self belief, and toughness.  I’m not going to call for him to start yet, but damn if it’s not close.  He really does a lot of directing of traffic and will stand up to a vet player if he think he’s right. The kids got some huevos.

- With a 24 man roster and three injuries there aren’t enough players to go 11v11.  Hyndman says with the five U20s leaving FCD will be inviting some local younger players to join in training.  Some will be college, and I would image some will be USL, PDL, of even FCD Juniors.  Joe Cooper, Kenny’s younger brother who is at SMU, will be one of them according to Hyndman.    Some invitees will even start coming out tomorrow.

- I wouldn’t mind seeing Leone Cruz and Paulo da Silva from SMU either.  And while I’m doing the picking, let’s see Austin Neil the Conference USA Freshman of the Year for Tulsa too.  He scored 11 goals as a freshman, which is a impressive total.

- Ellinger told me Oscar Pareja in fact will be putting on the cleats to join in training tomorrow.

- In case you missed it, Break Shea and Josh Lambo have been pulled from the U20s.

Catching Up with Schellas Hyndman

Looks like you’re sticking with the 3-5-2?

I think with the injuries we have, I mean we still have out two center backs who aren’t able to train… it could be two weeks to four weeks before they are able to train… we want to kinda go back to what we did well in the second half against Seattle, when we were in a 3-5-2.  Whether it’s the system of play, or of it’s the formation, I think it’s just as important that we get the right people on the field that bring a little bit more bite to our team, a little more intensity.  Whatever system it is I think you need that.

The three central midfielders does help David a little bit, without the major responsibility of coming back. It seemed the three at the back was able to handle the pressure that was put on them.  You know we’re such an attacking team in a 4-4-2 with our fullbacks that normal we’re in a there back system anyway.  So now we’re just trying to train them and get them a little bit better and today was today was a productive day for the central midfield.

Buzz’s Coach Speak Translator: The 3-5-2 worked didn’t it?

In a 3-5-2 you don’t really have the wingbacks in Rocha and van den Bergh, so what do you do there?

I think that van den Bergh had a pretty good game for us in the second half.  What we do is lose some of him moving into the attack, but he’s still able to put in some quality Services.  Andre you know, if we can get Andre just to hold the ball better and not have as many turnovers I think he’ll be fine.  But I also think those are going to be the first position on the field where we make changes cause we are still going to demand the work load for them.  The work load is going to me more than a 4-4-2 obviously.  Then we have “Tom” [Sanchez], we got Wally [Anthony Wallace], and Avi [Eric Avila].  I think we have some other payers that can come in and maybe help us in those position maybe 60 minutes on.

Buzz’s Coach Speak Translator:  Hop. That’s what we do.  Hope.

You tend to not work the upcoming starters during the  early part of the week, perhaps even making the starting decision quite late.  Can you talk about why you wait so late in the week to work the starting line up?

I think there’s a couple reasons.  One, usually Monday is a recovery day so it doesn’t matter who’s starting.  Tuesday we’ve been giving them a day off, so it doesn’t matter who’s starting.  By the time Wednesday comes around, I want to have a chance to see them in training, see how well they’re adapting, see how well they are getting over their bumps and bruises. 

So I could announces the line up on Thursday, but I like to wait till Friday cause we as coaches already know what our line up will be cause we’ve already discussed it, but we don’t know who our 18.  So we wait till Friday to announce it, when we go through training.  When they come back into the locker room then they know who is on the 18 list.

You take the other side of it.  If you train with the first team in training and someone gets hurt, it puts you back in a situation with ,”well we’ve been training with someone else there.”   And I really do think we’ve got so many young players that if they walked out and new they weren’t going to be playing the next game we may lose them emotionally and they might lose their confidence.  With a more experienced team we may announce it on Wednesday, ok here’s out starting eleven we want to work with these guys only on set pieces, defending set pieces, attacking set pieces.  All the kinds of things that go on.

Buzz’s Coach Speak Translator:  There is a method to my madness.  You may not like it, but there is a reason for all things.

Training

Out of warm up and stretching the team is put into a possession kind of game with neutral players on each side and in each corner of a 30×30 yard box. 

Red: Wallace, Rocha, McCarty, vdBergh, Dello-Russo, Shea
Green: Richetti Guarda, Cooper, Moor, Saragosa, Torres
Grey: Wagner, Ferreira, Sanchez, Avila, Davies, Marosevic

Second session was a box to box game, Since there aren’t enough players both teams play missing wide mids.  Hyndman makes a small box of red cones at midfield that limits the central midfielders.  You can see it’s a 3-5-2 though for the first team against a 4-4-2.

Green: Cooper, Shea, Ferreira, Guarda, Saragosa, Torres, Ricchetti, Moor, Burse
Grey: Marosevic, Rocha, McCarty, Sanchez, Wallace, Wagner, Davies, Dello-Russo, Lambo

VDBergh and Avila start out watching.  Drill version 2.0 has them both in with the grey for Sanchez and McCarty.  Version 3.0 McCarty replaces Saragosa on the first team and Sanchez is in for Ferreira.  Version 4.0 Rocha comes in for Guarda making the midfield McCarty, Rocha, Sanchez on the first team.

Lineup Prediction

Ok so 3-5-2 it is. I’m a bit surprised Hyndman isn’t going back his beloved diamond 4-4-2.  But you know how he is about trust and with the injuries in the back line this appears to be the lien up that gets the most trusted players on the field.

Ricchetti is the middle of the back line with Moor and Torres.  Saragosa and Guarda in the middle, although I for one would like McCarty over Saragosa.  In this system Saragosa is the pure holder, and Guarda the more linking type player.  VDB and Rocha stay out there but the wide mids will be early subs probably.  What kind of player might depend on the score.  Shea keeps his spot with Cooper by both injury and game. 

Thought of the Day

I’m not sold on this idea of a 3-5-2.  I don’t think this shape fits this team any better than the diamond 4-4-2 did.  In the Diamond 4 FCD was missing the rangy, hard tackling holding mid (like Osvaldo Alonso or Ricardo Clark, the only guy they have close is probably Anthony Wallace)… and a right mid… and a center back (is Ricchetti solving that?).  

In the 3-5-2 FCD is missing the wingbacks.  Against Wallace is the closest on the left, but there isn’t anyone on the right.

My favorite personal shape is a flat four, jut watch Man U if you want to see one.  But that’s not right either for FCD, where do you put Farreira in that shape and there is still no right mid? 

Really some kind of 4-3-3- is probably the best shape with this team.  Which isn’t shocking cause that’s how Morrow had transitioned the roster.  (I won’t bother breaking it down cause it won’t happen here anyway.)

Point being, until Hyndman gets another transfer window, heck maybe even two, the roster just isn’t going to fit the shape he wants.  This isn’t Europe with 40 man rosters where you can play whatever you want when you want.  In MLS you have to build a roster to fit the shape you want to play.

One could of course adapt the shape to what is best at the moment and work towards the desired shape as the roster changes.  But that doesn’t seem to be the way for this coach.

Categories: Practice Observations.

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