June 6th, 2009 . 1:00 pm . By: Buzz Carrick

The day you take complete responsibility for yourself, the day you stop making any excuses, that’s the day you start to the top. – Orenthal James Simpson

Not a cloud in the sky, such is the way when the team wins a game.  Everyone is in a better mood this week, players, coaches, staff.  Even the few fans watching.

Such is the value of a win, particularly a decisive win.

News, Notes and Observations

- Ricchetti, who is playing hurt (not injured) is not 100% but he does training today so I expect him to play.

- No Sala, Purdy, or Guarda this week. I have not seen any of them in a long time.  Which frankly means little since rehabbing players work inside.  Usually until the week before they return to training.  For example John was out last week.

- Speaking of which, George John tried to train on Wednesday but had some trouble with his hammy, in a new location, not the same one.  So SH says they are going to take their time getting him back.

- I mentioned this via twitter, but Tatu has confirmed that he will play in the Dallas Soccer Tribute Match.

- Sanchez continues to look really sharp in training.  He’s looking really energetic and dangerous in attack.

- Hyndman says he’ll be in a suite or booth during the game but can’t communicate with the team via any method.  Which means Ellinger will be on the bench coaching the team.  Hyndman was fined $500 and suspended, which FCD didn’t seem to announce.

- Hyndman says the last time he was red carded was 31 years ago in his first season as a head coach at Eastern Illinois.  They were playing at Cincinnati.

Catching Up with Schellas Hyndman

Since Ricchetti moved to the back your team has given up only one goal, why do you think that is?

I think there is a couple things.  About him personally, he was raised as a defender at River Plate.  That’s where he always played.  I think his strengths are his experience, and the other thing I think is his organizational ability.  He makes other players around him better.  I mean he’s talking to Dax [McCarty] all the time, he’s telling Drew [Moor] “come in,” he’s talking to [Anthony Wallace], “that’s your man over there.”  He’s always communicating and organizing.  And I think he’s a real competitor, he’s the perfect captain for this team cause he’s willing to step out and hold people accountable.  So I think those combinations is one.

I think the other thing is we’ve had so many injuries, player we think should be out there.  Whether it’s George John, Steve Purdy, so forth.  I think because of those injuries there has been a real inconsistency in the back four in terms of the line up.  Whether it’s Marcelo [Saragosa], whether it’s [Wallace], whether it’s Blake [Wagner], or Danny [Torres].  You can count everybody in the group.  I think we have been a much better team in defense with Pablo.

Buzz’s Coach Speak Translator: I don’t think you can undersell how important Ricchetti is.  He deserves a raise.

Have you talked to the team about your ejection?

I told the players, as I shared with these guys, I think holding the players accountable for their actions, whether it’s a yellow card, red card, or not marking their player, something that I really think this team has missed.  So the other day I held myself accountable and apologized for my behavior and it was unacceptable.  I told them it wouldn’t happen again.  But I took responsibility and told them I made the mistake.  Hoping this would also instill in to them.  I though yesterday was one of our best trainings since I been here.  There was a little bit more bite, something we’ve been missing.

Buzz’s Coach Speak Translator: Real men take responsibility for their actions.

How much of the good defense was because McCarty back in the line up?

[I told the team] I had the three players I was concerned about the most, was Dax McCarty, I was concerned and Jeff Cunningham on the right side, and I was also concerned about [Wallace] on the left side.  I thought all three of them had good games.  We rate our players after every game.  A 1 being excellent and a 5 being very poor.  And it was the first time the coaching staff rated any player a 1.  And Dax was one of those players.

I thought he had an exceptional game. I thought he played into the structure.  I never doubted his ability. I doubted his focus and understanding in accepting his job description.  I thought in this game he did a very good job with that.  He could have very well been the man of the match.  I am quick to recognize mistakes, and I am quick to recognize excellence, and I thought he was very, very good.

Buzz’s Coach Speak Translator: Dax is my boy!  I told you he could do it.

Penetrating midfielders are important in this 4-5-1 shape, can you talk about Sanchez’s performance in that light?

I think Sanchez… you know we didn’t bring him here for his good looks and personality, we brought him here to be a good player.  But it’s been hard to get him on the field cause we haven’t been playing well.  So we went into this structure thinking both of those players, David [Ferreira] and Sanchez both could share the responsibility of the second striker or the attacking midfielder.

What I’ve been saying to Sanchez, cause he has such a really good left foot; passing, shooting, and penetrating passes, but also scoring; but if he holds himself behind their midfield and continues to hold the ball then we really don’t have enough of a strike force. So I’ve asked him to go in between their defense and their midfield.  To try to go there, in different places where he can assist or score goals.

Buzz’s Coach Speak Translator: He can do so much more.

Training

After the warm up and stretching, the team moved into a two halves kind of drill.  Mids play both ways and swap out sets of three.  There is a set of forwards on each end along with 4 defenders.  So each way is 5v4.  Then there is a similar drill that is 3 O vs 2D.  Point of both drills is for the advancing midfield to partner with a striker and quickly isolate a 2v1 and create a scoring chance.  Obviously this is about the lone striker and charging midfielders in the 4-5-1 FCD is playing the last week.

After that was a full field game.9v9, each team only has three defenders.

Grey: Cooper, Ferreira, Sanchez, vdBergh, Cunningham, Davies, Ricchetti, Moor
Green: Marosevic, Wallace, Rocha, Avila, Shea, Wagner, Torres, Saragosa, Dello-Russo

At first Shea was on the grey team as an extra attacker and it was clear he was going to rotate into the grey team.  But when it was discovered green was short a player he was added to the green midfield.

Lineup Prediction

It’s obvious from training the front six will remain the same, and why wouldn’t then.  The coach would be nuts to change it.  That’s how you kill the locker room.  The back four should be the same except Torres has been struggling with a nagging injury.  It looks like Davies is under consideration to take his spot.  Davies has been playing great in training so I won’t be too worried if he plays.

Thought of the Day One

I don’t think you can undersell how much a difference Ricchetti has made in the back line.  Since the captain went to the back at halftime of the Seattle game, FCD has only give up one goal.  Roughly, that’s 0.4 goals per game given up (yes it’s a small sample).  In the previous 8 regular season games, FCD gave up 15 goals for 1.875 goals per game against.

Point being, if this rend continues, Ricchetti will have solved problem number one as I saw it: the need for a calming veteran influence in the back line.  The key to it continuing is that someone has to playing holding mid well enough for Hyndman to not want to move Ricchetti back to midfield.

Hence the importance of the performance of McCarty in the last game.  If Dax can keep that high level of play going, then Ricchetti can stay in the back, and FCD can use it’s #1 allocation on some other need.

Like a true wide right midfielder (to balance van de Bergh) or perhaps another top end striker to compliment Cooper.

Categories: Practice Observations.

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