Last year I watched Va Beach play a couple of games and Busey stood out, at least to me, as the best player on the field. Wondered why he wasn't in the MLS. Found out he was released by the Burn. Then when reading some of the draft threads recently found out he was a number 1 pick, 3rd overall?, by Dallas. What was his story in Dallas?
Andy Swift loved Bussey's personality and charisma. I heard him mention more than once, if Eddie had Carl's persona we could really base our marketing around him. Unfortunately Bussey did not have enough skills or polish to be successful at MLS level. His only move was to dump the ball upfield and try to beat the defense to the ball. And in MLS there was no guarantee that he would be able to outrun the defender. Speed of thought was also lacking when he was with the Burn on the few occassions that he beat his man, he would become indecisive not knowing what to do with the ball. Many times he would simply get to the end line and loose it out of bounds. If Bussey has polished his technical skills, he would be a nice pickup for any MLS club out there including our beloved Red and Black.
That info is incorrect. Bussey was taken 9th overall in 2002. The Burn's second pick in the 1st round (a top heavy draft) Carl has loads of pace, is good attacking down the wings with pace, and is good in the air. But his feet are not good. Poor touch, and ball skill. He is not good in combination, which makes him a bit of a liability in MLS when trying to build out of back or maintaining possession. Just short of good enough, but man does he have wheels. Frankly when MLS has 12 or 14 teams he will probably get another shot. Or maybe not, it will depend on how hard he keeps working.
Let's all remember, it's pretty hard to get "polished' if you're not playing. I recall many of the same criticisms of Brian Ching when he was with the Galaxy. He got cut, played for a year in the A-League and now look at him. I think Bussey needs to play to get better. People need to remember, Carl was a midfielder in college. He's learning how to become a right back.... Right now, I'd like to see the Earthquakes bring him into spring practice and play him against our other "right back options". With some work by Agoos and Dayak, Bussey could be a good pickup. The toughest part is seeing the field and knowing where to be and when to be there. You can only do that by playing. Oh by the way, you should have seen Eddie Robinson's "technical skills" when he got here. Yikes!
interesting what brought up my interest is that when I saw Busey he was used in a much more defensive role, I basically considered him a defender, d mid if you will, sitting behind an attacking mid, rarely probing forward. What you say is making sense as he seemed much more composed with the ball than the average MLS dmid defender, used speed to cover a lot of ground centrally, rarely took on players, instead did a very good job in distributing to attacking players. Since I was reading Dallas needed defensive help I was just curious as to why they let him go. Since I have never seen him in an attacking role, I can not make any opinion on that. Guess that's one of the fasinating things about soccer, coaches seeing different things indifferent players.