Interesting piece from SI back in 2004, reporting on the MLS combine: CARSON, Calif. -- Two days into Major League Soccer's pre-draft player combine at the Home Depot Center and the buzz was all about Stanford defender Chad Marshall and his man-among-boys performance on the first day of the camp. Everybody, it seemed, had Marshall on his mind -- nobody else was being mentioned -- including U.S. under-23 coach Glenn "Mooch" Myernick, who called up the U-20 defender for the remainder of his pre-Olympic qualifying camp.... It all sounds good until they get to this: Myernick said he was impressed with Marshall at the U-20 championship, but he wants to see more leadership from soft-spoken central back. 'LITTLE BIT TOO QUIET' "He's by nature a little bit too quiet of a player for me, in terms of his taking some leadership back there and organizing," Myernick said after Monday's scrimmages. "I think part of playing in the back is taking advantage of the fact that you can see more of the field than the guys in front of you, and you need to help them with a little direction. He needs to certainly grow in that area. ... "Being able to organize of the field, to me that's just part and parcel of what that position requires, like heading, tracking, passing. Talking is part of it. He needs to take a serious look at himself in terms of that component of the game as he now tries to play at the upper levels of the game." It would certainly seem that this is still a limitation in his game. Can you really teach someone to be vocal back there, or is it something that you either have or don't have? http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2004/soccer/01/13/mls.combine.sa/index.html
You should be able to teach it, I wonder if growing up people didnt listen to him??? When you talk back there and people dont listen its discouraging. Sounds like we need a little stuart smalley affirmation session. Your good enough, your justified and dog gone it, people will listen to you.
You can teach it. You teach it by demanding it in practice. You make it clear you expectations to both him and his teammates. Leave no uncertainty as to who you expect to be your organizer in the back. Then you ********ing DEMAND that he steps up in practice. Sigi to Marshall: If you're not hoarse at the end of this practice, you're going to run until you puke. Got it? Good.
I thought this thread was gonna be about Africa. Put me in the camp that thinks that... A) a player can be cajoled into being more vocal and more of a leader in the back. Look at Eddie Pope, for example, who is by nature quiet and soft-spoken but who towards the end of his national team career was the vocal organizer of the backline. (Till he got thrown out against Italy. ) I think it requires the coaching staff being very clear with the player and saying "you're the leader back here and we expect you to do this." I'd like to think a veteran back like Mike Lapper would be able to coach this into him. And, B) That a healthy Chad Marshall can return to being one of the elite backs in MLS. I've always liked the player and think he hasn't come close to scratching the surface of his potential. IMO, he can be as dominant as Gooch but at this point, it's up to him.
I'm of the belief that Chad Marshall, at this point in his career, is the type of CB that MUST be paired with a vocal leader. As much as I like both Marshall and Gonzo I just don't think they're a good fit in the middle. If Chad had been brought in under proper managing, and paired with Fraser for at least one more season I think he'd be further along in his progress. But to have Fraser retire last year and match Marshall with someone of limited English and who was also learning the MLS game was simply too much to ask. I hope they can pair well together this season but I guess my expectations for Chad have dropped significantly from 2 years ago.
I've long speculated on what a "monster" back line the US might field someday with Gooch, Spector and Marshall. Not gonna lose a lot of air balls, at the very least, but moree importantly that's a group that could play 10 years together, and continuity is priceless, particularly defensively.
Maybe we could not feed him for awhile? Keep him up at night? Get him hungry and cranky and he might yell at some people then.
I believe a player can be convinced to be more vocal. But, making a person be more of a leader, that cannot be taught or forced. IMO, leaders are born not made.
Then what are they doing at West Point with all that leadership training? Your opinion is oft repeated, but I disagree. You can learn to be a leader (or at least more of one). But the player has to WANT to be a leader. Or at least willing to try. That's where you point has more validity, the player in question has to be a willing pupil, if he won't implement what you teach him, its pointless.
There's a split here, though -- I honestly don't care if Chad wants to be a leader or a follower. Whatever. Let Duncan and guys like that lead. However, to be effective at his position, he has to be vocal. He has to be able to yell out where people need to be, and where he is, and so on. That's not necessarily leadership -- that's just being an effective player. Last year showed us that apparently Chad spent the first 2 years of his career just going where Fraser, Busch and Walker yelled at him to go. If he can't make that next step, he's barely an MLS starter, let alone a national teamer. Disappointing when you consider his chief competition for ROY his first year in was Dempsey, who's career has continued to grow, while Chad seems to have backslid to the point where he'd probably be fighting for a spot on a team with any real depth. Disappointing, to say the least. Hopefully this is the season it clicks.
I'm no expert, but it seems you're suggesting that he just doesn't have the vision to see what needs to be communicated. That he's a good technical and 1v1 defender, but doesn't see the bigger picture, and so doesn't get what everybody should be doing and therefore doesn't know what to say if he was more comfortable being vocal? So it's not necessarily a case of not being a leader, or at least not only that, but that his game has a limitation as well?
Excellent post by ou-whateverthehell; the system won't lt me rep him at the moment but I'll catch him later. In response to IMposter, not that ou-whateverthehell needs me to expand on his post, it seems to me that what he's talking about here is primarily decision making. "Communicating" (much more descriptive than "talking" IMO) is simply part of the job. Leadership, however you define it, is an extra that some guys bring to the table and some guys don't. I'm not going to debate whether leadership is something you can learn or develop over time, I'll leave that for someone else. But it seems to me, and apparently to ou, that when Marshall had to make his decisions on his own - when to move up, which player to take, when and where to play the ball forward, etc., etc., etc.,- rather than have a veteran telling him what to do, he stumbled a bit. It's fine for a young kid - and Marshall was 19 when he joined this team - to lean on the experienced guys around him for help making decisions, but this is Marshall's fourth year in the league. At some point he's got to start doing it for himself. If he can't - and some people here honestly seem to feel that he msay not be able to - then he's really of limited use. Add in the fact that, on several occasions, he seemed to simply quit on a play and allowed the other team to send a guy into the box while he stood and watched. That's not decidion making or communicating, that's just terrible play, soemthing which we hadn't seen from him before. If you were of a cynical bent - certainly not like old optimistic me, of course - you might opine that the coaching he got in his first two years was, to put it mildly, non-existent. All the factors last year - loss of Frasier, loss of Busch, new HC with new expectations, and Marshall, frankly, looked completely lost at times. He went from being one of the most highly touted young defenders in the USA to struggling to keep his spot in the first eleven on a really bad team desperat for a decent defender. I agree that this has to be a make-it-or-break-it year for Chad. Time to step up.
Is it lack of vision or lack of confidence? Being quiet is compatible with confidence and strength of character - think Gary Cooper and High Noon. But with Chad it seems like its just timidity, and timidity in a center half is just disastrous. It leads to hesitation, which breaks down an entire defensive line, and it can mean giving up on plays before they're through. On the field this looks the same as a lack of vision, an inability to read the game. But its not the same thing really. Sometimes the most vocal guy in the game is telling you the wrong thing, and sometimes the guy who knows what to do isn't saying. Robin Fraser oozed class and confidence and shielded Chad from Jon Busch. When things were going good that first year, it must have been a lot easier for Chad than now. In Robin's last year, when things weren't so great, Chad's confidence seemed to break and it left Robin exposed. Last year was even worse, and Busch's boot-camp style is as likely to drum Chad out of the team as push him on to better things. By reputation, I guess Sigi's a guy who might be able to sort this out. Although I agree that Chad needs to find his complete game this year if he's going to play much, I don't think this year makes or breaks his career. He's just a kid yet. It's easy for me to see him re-emerging in a few years as a top class defender paying tribute to Robin, his first mentor. One other thing. Right after Ante Razov had cut the nuts off of "pre-Sigi's" branches a couple years back, I remember a poster here saying that Chad was one of the few guys hanging out with Razov in practice. It was certainly controversial, but I thought Razov was on the right side of that divide. At any rate, Razov certainly wasn't too "quiet." Maybe Chad's looking for something, and I hope he finds it.
Great post. A couple thoughts if you don't object: Other times, it looks for all the world like laziness: you see him not move where it's painfully obvious that a player SHOULD be moving and all you can think is that he's just taking a break. But as you say, it's sometimes timidity, lack of decisiveness, lack of confidence, whatever, that makes him hesitate. I spent a lot of time last year watching a college team where the keeper, a senior, absolutely screamed at his defenders constantly, and much - maybe most - of the time he was simply, unmistakeably, dead wrong. It's tough to watch, because you really want to stand up and holler "Shut the F*** up you moron!" Whatever else anyone can and does say about Razov, I will never be down on the guy. He's the onewho was reliably quoted as looking directly into Andrulis' eyes and saying "You are an idiot and I will never play for you again" Any man that eloquent has my respect.
I apologize for the digression, but the pattern of a very promising player coming to Columbus only to have his career die on the vine seems to be a common one. Chad Marshall, Eddie Gaven & Danny Szetela are only a few of the more recent examples. What about Buddle & Martino? The previous post pointing to the willingness of the student seems to be particularly relevant. The pattern seems to be that the player comes to Columbus, and very quickly loses the drive to learn and perform. Several seasons pass & then they have become has-beens. I previously felt Fitzgerald then Andrulis were responsible for this. But the pattern has changed little if at all under Schmid as well. Is it as simple as creating an environment in which there is constant competition for every position so as to provide the player constant motivation to improve?
For Marshall this is a make or break year. Following his initial year he has certainlyl not taken the step we all expected, but alas, that first year he played alongside one of the best CB to ever play in MLS and perhaps because of it he looked better himself. Gaven has been in Columbus for all of one season and if you ask any Metro fan they'll tell you that the slide was happening much sooner than before he ever joined the Crew. Gaven was disappointing given what so many expected, but it certainly wasn't a surprise considering his disappointing play the year before. Szetela hasn't had an injury free year yet - perhaps this is that year, and with it perhaps a year he'll live up to the billing that everyone was hoping for when we won the rights to the player. Under Andrulis - and both were traded under Sigi to other teams in MLS where lets just say they certainly didn't lite the world on fire - so perhaps it wasn't the coaching but in fact, maybe just maybe some blame needs to be laid on the players feet. He's been here ONE season. How exactly can there be a pattern?
In that one season we were awful as were the players listed. Maybe I should ask the question a different way. Name any young promising player who has furthered his career in Columbus? The only one that comes to mind is Stern John. Every other example was a flop. It is difficult to beleive that they were all poor players or that the coaches so badly misjudged their talent.
The water in Columbus contains AIDS? What kind of answer are you looking for? What the hell is your point?
To be fair Eddie Pope was always known as being quiet and letting other members of the defense (either Garlick/Simpson/Presthus or Agoos) be the vocal one. To me it is far more important to have a GK who is loud and vocal since he is seeing everything.