The Revs chose not to participate in the 2003 MLS pre-season training festivities in Florida. Does this approach put the team at a competitive disadvantage, particularly at the outset of the regular season?
an advantage of not goin to florida is that other teams won't know our strengths/weaknesses. you can always have scouts in Florida watching the games, but i hardly doubt that teams will send scouts down to the middle of nowhere in brazil to watch the revs.
I think that the Brasil component of the preseason was a wise choice from a variety of points of viuew; isolation and complete immersion in a soccer culture, chance to play against good competition in midseason form, time away from the quasi-familial confines of 24/7 MLS opposition, chance to scout some local talent. The bubble part, i.e. now, is another matter and I really worry if our lads won't go backwards training indoors for a fortnight with no games to play. Maybe they'll make it up in Costa Rica, reprehensible front office strategies aside, but that is a very fine line to pin one's hopes on for the season. Worried, JIM DOW
Keep the stay short south of the border I can see the arguments for the early training sessions in Brasil- the relative isolation, warm conditions, low costs (esp. low costs!), etc., but I'm not convinced spending any more time there, scrimmaging against Brasilian opponents makes sense. IMHO, any organization should reproduce the conditions in practice that will occur in 'real life'. To cite an unfortunate analogy, the US miltary hasn't been training in Antarctica for the past 6 months. I would argue that because the Revs won't see the same types of players, style of play, or even weather conditions in Brasil/Costa Rica as in the MLS, they're not going to be as prepared when the season starts. As for the "surprises" argument, how much surprise can there be with the same coach and a starting lineup that's 80% the same? OTOH, with respect to stability and all the benefits this implies, this is as good as it gets!
Re: Keep the stay short south of the border I agree. Training in Brazil was good, but they should have planned at LEAST 2 games against MLS opponents as a measuring stick to their fitness and readiness for the regular season, and to get reacclimated to the MLS "style" of play. It's all well and good to say that we aren't in midseason shape like the Brazillian teams and Alajuelense, but they MUST be in at least equal shape as MLS teams. In the past when we haven't faced MLS teams in the spring, or have done poorly against them, we've had a bad 3-4 game start.
Re: Re: Keep the stay short south of the border I am in complete agreement with this. To make things worse, there's a psychological disadvantage for several reasons, not the least being the weight of our horrible history of being slow out of the gate.
It's an interesting argument. As has already been suggested, the benefits of holding preseason training down in Brazil include the isolation, true opportunity for team building without distraction, a chance to play some unfamiliair competition in competitive form, while also retaining the opportunity to run the rule over any number of potential prospects. The team is also afforded the luxury of warmer weather... no small psychological boost at this point, and in some respects, the ability to "keep their cards close to their vest." Considering the nature of Steve Nicol, training away from the prying eyes of other MLS teams should appeal to that part of him that doesn't feel the need to provide immediate access to what he's thinking, his plans... tatics, player personnel, etc. I don't think it's entirely fair to suggest that the Revolution need to "reproduce the conditions in practice that will occur in 'real life'," at least not at ths point. In fact, conditions at this point such as trying out any number of potential players, subbing wholesale sides at half-time, playing large numbers of reserves, and trying out experimental alignments is anything but 'real life'. As for whether the Revs should face MLS competition in pre-season? Well, the last time the Revs went through a pre-season without playing an MLS opponent (1999 when Walter Zenga took the team to Italy), the Revs started out of the gate rather well, 2-0-3 when not considering the shoot-out results if I'm right.) In any event, we'll see what happens. The Magpie
From mlsnet.com match report for yesterday's Colorado v LA preseason game in FL: Misconduct Summary: COL -- Wes Hart (caution) 22nd. LA -- Alexi Lalas (caution) 26th. LA -- Alexi Lalas (caution) 43rd. LA -- Alexi Lalas (ejection) 43rd. COL -- Jeff Stewart (caution) 47th. COL -- Ritchie Kotschau (caution) 38th. COL -- Kyle Beckerman (caution) 57th. COL -- Kyle Beckerman (caution) 65th. COL -- Kyle Beckerman (ejection) 65th. LA -- Ezra Hendrickson (ejection) 67th. COL -- Wes Hart (ejection) 72nd. LA -- Isaias Bardales (ejection) 79th. COL -- Danny Jackson (caution) 82nd. It seems that maybe it's safer to not be in Florida now, if this is how the teams are playing. 6 ejections, they finished 8 v 8.