June 18th, 2009 . 11:29 pm . By: Buzz Carrick

I’m completely operational, and all my circuits are functioning perfectly. - HAL 9000

Well summer is officially here as it’s 100, or so says my car.  Thankfully there is a light breeze most of the day and some scattered clouds so it’s not too hot.  It’s gonna get nasty quick though.

Hyndman joked the new guy Parrot couldn’t believe how hot it was… when really it’s not that hot yet.

News, Notes and Observations

- Dario Sala is out and about today.  He’s jogging and doing some ball work on the side.  He even does some keeper stuff with the keeper coach.  I figure he’ll return to full training next week.

- George John is involved in the possession stuff but doesn’t do the open play.  He continues to do ball work on the side.  Also in full training next week I expect.

- van den Bergh (ankle), Ferreira (hammy), and Guarda (ankle) all participate fully today in training for the first time this week.  If they come through unscathed on Friday I would expect all three to be available.

- Trailist Tom Parratt is around, but I don’t see enough of him to tell anything at all about if he’s any good.  Some solid touch I think.  Hyndman didn’t give the most ringing endorsement when he was asked about him.

Catching Up with Schellas Hyndman

With all the injuries are you stuck gluing together mismatched parts sometimes?

Yeah, it’s really tough.  Most of our injuries are coming in the defense. I don’t think we’ve played two games back-to-back with the same back four. In our back four, I think one time we’ve played in back-to-back games. The point being is that if we just picked up a really good defender and put him into our team, he would stand out and be a good defender for us but how well would he know how to play with the other guys? There’s always that communication, coordination and all the things that good things do. They play together like a hand. So right now, we are having so much difficulty with who is our center back? Who is our right back? Who is our left back? We just keep bouncing things around and I think that’s probably the biggest effect from our injuries and I don’t think we’re done yet.

Buzz’s Coach Speak Translator: I’m running out of glue.

Do you have a theory about the injuries, does there seem to be something in common?  A theme in them perhaps? Or is it coincidence?

Yeah there is a theme, center backs. That’s why we keep struggling with defense. Yeah (it’s a coincidence). We investigated all those types of things but when we saw they were all center backs, we said nah, maybe not. We’ve talked about nutrition, muscle pulls, muscle strains and getting more rest. The atmosphere is so different than what it was last year. The atmosphere is when we give them a day off, they’re in here working out in the weight room pushing weights, doing fitness running or riding cardio bikes. Last year, we gave them a day off and they’re gone. I think the atmosphere is so much better. Maybe part of it is the guys who are injured are just working so hard to come back that they get re-injured right away.

Buzz’s Coach Speak Translator: Yeah, the theme is injuries suck.

How do you keep everyone motivated and working with such a big deficit in points to make the playoffs?

I don’t think it’s out of reach already. I think we need to get some points. We walked into these three games at home and said, let’s go get nine points. We had a tie that we should have won. Then we played well enough that we probably could have beaten Houston if we had put a couple of those chances away and that would have been six points. Maybe we lose to Columbus, tie Columbus or even win against Columbus, but what you’re seeing here is what we’ve done from day one-the inconsistencies, the basic mistake that leads toward the goal and then tremendous opportunities to score but we don’t score.

It’s an interesting statistic we looked at today when we looked at the number of touches on the ball. The only two games that we were below our average were the two games where we had the cards-the Chivas game and the LA game. And you can understand being down a man, you’re not going to get the touches. I wanted to correlate what our touches were when we went into a 4-1-4-1 and what they were in a 4-4-2. We’ve improved our touches in the game by 150. If we’re hitting 420 touches in a game, now we’re at 570, which means we’re getting a lot more possession of the ball.

Now possession without progression is a nightmare but also, the possession is giving us better scoring chances. We’ve also looked at scoring chances and our number of scoring chances has more than doubled. The way we’re playing, we’re getting chances and we’re in front of the goal.

[chuckles] Don’t blame me, I’ve yet to miss a goal. But we’re getting the chances.

Buzz’s Coach Speak Translator: We’re actually playing better so it’s not hard.

Why do you think the team has struggled at home?

I think it’s a combination of a couple of things and I’ll start with us. I don’t know if our players play and have the idea that winning at home is an advantage. I don’t know if our players appreciate how valuable it is to be sleeping in your own bed, eating your own meal, hanging out with your family and being in your comfort zone. This is an advantage.

The second thing is, it’s a lot of pressure playing in front of your fans when your team is not winning. When they are, you love playing in front of the fans, so I think that might be another point.

I think the third point is I don’t think the home environment brings the best out of us. All you have to do is go to Toronto, Chicago or Houston and see what a great environment those home games are. I also realize we take responsibility for not having as many fans in the stands as we would like because they want to be entertained, they want to get a dollar value and they want to see their team win.

So it’s kind of like a catch 22. We want more people in the stands but we can’t make them come, but we can encourage them to come by winning and playing exciting soccer.”

Buzz’s Coach Speak Translator: Our attendance sucks, so we suck, so our attendance sucks, so we suck….

Training

Training kicks off with a possession game, then it’s corner practice.  Marco Ferruzzi runs the guys through some new rotations being implemented this week.  Here’s the possession drill teams…

Red: Ferreira, vdBergh, Cooper, Rocha, Moor, McCarty, Riccheti, Davies, Saragosa.
Blue: Avila, Dello-Russo, Shea, Guarda, Parratt, Wallace, Cunningham, Marosevic

After that is a full field drill, but it’s 9v9 as there aren’t enough players.

Red: Cooper, Ferreira, vdBergh, Rocha, McCarty, Wallace, Ricchetti, Davies, Saragosa
Blue: Marosevic, Shea, Avila, Parratt, Cunningham, Guarda, Wagner, Moor, Dello-Russo.

Lineup Prediction

I’m a bit concerned by seeing Saragosa on the red team and Moor on the blue.  But Cunningham was on blue also and it’s 9v9…

I don’t see many changes up for consideration.  Davies keeps his spot it looks like, and with all the injuries there won’t be much more it appears.

Thought of the Day

I’m actually kind of pleased to see Davies continue in the first team, even if it’s only cause of injures.  One game is never enough to really tell anything about a player.  I’d prefer a run of at least three before Davies makes way for someone more veteran returning from injury.

I don’t think there’s any question George John will get a spot back when he’s ready.  I look forward to seeing him with Ricchetti, at least I hope it will be Ricchetti and not a  return to Pablo in midfield.  It does beg the question of if Hyndman will instantly return to his diamond 4-4-2 even though it’s clear as day FCD is playing better?

Actually the bigger question becomes… does Hyndman keep trying to salvage this season or is it time to prep for 2010.  Cause if it’s now about next year he might as well go back to the shape he will be playing next year. The diamond 4.

Categories: Practice Observations.

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