USL Feature
Friday, February 3, 2012
By NICHOLAS MURRAY
It’s become a rite of preseason for many teams in Major League Soccer, which make the trip to Southern California for their preseason camps to get ready for the new season. And for many of the teams that make the trip west, a game against the USL PDL’s Ventura County Fusion is usually on the calendar.
This preseason the Fusion will play six MLS teams, with a game against the Colorado Rapids up next on Sunday morning for the 2009 PDL Champions and games against the Montreal Impact, San Jose Earthquakes, Chicago Fire and Houston Dynamo lined up. But the Fusion’s involvement with preseason training didn’t originate with MLS teams, as the club's Director of Soccer Graham Smith recalled this week.
“Originally Everton came over to Los Angeles and they were obviously looking for some practice matches and I said ‘well, we’ll play you as part of your training,’ and we gave them a very good game and got a little publicity from it,” Smith said by phone. “As a consequence, other teams came and asked us if we would play them, and we said yes.”
There are obvious reasons for teams making the trip to Oxnard and Ventura County, with the Earthquakes, Fire and Dynamo making camp as part of their trip to Oxnard. The climate is one, with California offering great weather for teams trying to get away from the northern winter. The facilities are another, with the same fields that were installed for the 1994 FIFA World Cup still being used at Oxnard College, and Ventura College also providing great practice facilities.
But then there’s also the Fusion, who have had their fair share of success through the years against their better-known opponents. The Fusion took a 1-0 win against CD Chivas USA this past weekend when the two teams met, but it wasn’t the first time the club had claimed an MLS scalp, with the team also having provided good opposition for the international clubs, such as the English Premier League’s Manchester City, Everton and West Bromwich Albion, that arrive during the summer for preseason training.
“We do realize that we catch these teams when they’re in their preparatory phase, let’s not kid ourselves, but it’s still very good,” Smith said. “We’ve acquitted ourselves extremely well against the Premier League teams. The Manchester City side we played last year had millions and millions of dollars of talent on it, Gareth Barry was playing, Shaun Wright-Phillips, all of these players, and we came out and played with them. Their head coach, Roberto Mancini, said he wants to come back and play us again. We’ve been told by the Manchester City officials that if they come to L.A. again, they want to play us. They were really gushing in their praise and it was very gratifying, actually.”
With the way the club has been able to help players reach the next level, with another four players being selected in the recent MLS SuperDraft and Supplemental Draft, it has been an attractive option for college players. Part of that has come from the opportunity for players to test themselves against higher levels of opposition, and learning what it takes to reach the professional ranks.
“It’s a massive benefit,” Smith said of the exhibition games. “We’re lucky on two counts, really, the first is that we do have quality people here in the Fusion. We have coaches with top qualifications and they all work with the boys. We’re also fortunate that some of those boys who are coming from college programs where the coaches are very well organized, and they do a very good job with the boys, but most of all the opportunity to pit yourself against higher-level teams and organizations will always be an attraction and will always really induce people to try and get some kind of association with the Fusion.”
In addition to offering the players the chance to play in the PDL, the Fusion hold an annual combine which is also happening this weekend. Coaches from USL PRO’s Charleston Battery, Wilmington Hammerheads and Los Angeles Blues will be in attendance, in addition to MLS scouts. Last season five former Fusion players were part of the Hammerheads’ squad in USL PRO, with more alums likely to be part of the league this summer.
“We’d like to think we can give them as much exposure as possible,” Smith said. “Some of these players are actually coming from overseas, some of them have been recommended to us by coaches, some by agents who have brought their clients in, so it’s a mixed bag.
“We’ll have six coaches on hand on Saturday and Sunday and we’ll be obviously giving them the opportunity to show what they can do with their technical skills in a practice situation, and then we also put them in game situations where it’s 11-on-11, so they’ll run the whole gamut of skills and they will certainly have the opportunity to show what they can do. Hopefully we’ll get a bunch of them that will get picked up.”
Creating opportunities for young players is something that Smith holds dear, having been seeking the same when he was a young player in England. Having made the most of his opportunity, Smith still gets a great deal of enjoyment when he sees a player from the Fusion move on to the next level.
“For us as an organization to be able to offer that opportunity through the PDL, because the PDL is a great stepping stone, there’s no doubt about it,” Smith said. “It gives us a tremendous amount of satisfaction when we see someone come through and perform and basically realize their dream.”
And then the process of building a side for this summer, where the Fusion will also compete in the U.S. Open Cup as they pursue another PDL championship.
“Fortunately the Fusion haven’t done too badly as a PDL outfit,” Smith said. “We won the National Championship three years ago, we’ve sent a lot of players on to professional careers, both overseas and in Major League Soccer, and a lot of boys go into USL. We have good relationships all around, I have friends who are coaching in USL and in Major League Soccer, so all-in-all it’s like one big happy family.”