USL Feature
Thursday, February 23, 2012
BY NICHOLAS MURRAY
Now in its ninth year, the Charleston Battery’s Carolina Challenge Cup has become a fixture on the MLS preseason calendar, attracting top-quality teams each year to Blackbaud Stadium for a week of great entertainment on and off the field.
This year, the Chicago Fire, Columbus Crew and D.C. United join the Battery for the tournament as they wrap up their preseason schedules before opening day of the MLS season on March 10. For Battery coach Mike Anhaeuser, seeing the tournament grow into the institution it has become has been exciting to see.
“I’ve seen it grow from the commitment of multiple MLS teams wanting to be a part of this tournament,” Anhaeuser said this week, “which translates to bringing in different teams, which allows our community to see different professional teams every season, along with some of the teams that are very familiar to our fans in Charleston.”
The most familiar of those teams is D.C. United, which has played the most games in the tournament’s history outside of the Battery. This will be United’s seventh visit to the event, with Coach Ben Olsen saying the standard of play on the field and the facilities the Battery are able to provide make it an ideal location for his side.
“Sometimes when you go to new places, you get surprises, and at this point of the preseason we don’t want surprises,” Olsen said. “We get good quality games in a good quality stadium. Our fans love it, it’s not too far away so they make a trip down to a great city and make a week out of it. Overall it’s been a great situation for us, basically, year-in and year-out.”
Before becoming United’s coach, Olsen also played in the tournament. Part of the United side that played in the tournament’s inaugural edition in 2004, he remembers being impressed by what Charleston had to offer back then.
“Well, it was very a very impressive place,” Olsen said. “Now it’s a little bit more commonplace, but back then it was pretty remarkable that a USL club had facilities like that and the pitch was always nice, we always loved going up there and seeing the memorabilia up in the bar. It’s just a great situation they’ve got going there, and it’s been a very good club and a good representation for the city of Charleston.”
Anhauser believes having a city as great as Charleston to provide the backdrop for the tournament, in addition to the facilities at the club, is one of its great appeals of the tournament. It’s often the case that fans from the visiting MLS clubs will make the trip down for the week-long event, and they have plenty to do when the games aren’t being played.
“Absolutely, the facilities are No. 1, but then you have the city,” Anhaeuser said. “When you bring players in for 10 days, you can’t always be playing soccer, so it is a great city for the players to get downtown to do something else, and of course the weather is fantastic right now.”
Olsen agrees, with the number of great restaurants in the area making it a fun week for the players and staff of the MLS clubs.
“Yeah, I eat very well in Charleston,” Olsen said. “Some of the better restaurants that I’ve ever been around as far as how many there are. We let the guys go out and enjoy themselves in the city of Charleston and I think they enjoy eating there probably more than other preseason trips.”
Of course, there is also serious work to be done. With rosters needing to be set ahead of opening day, Olsen and his counterparts Frank Klopas of Chicago and Robert Warzycha of Columbus will be giving final looks to trial players and figuring out which players will suit up for opening day while also keeping an eye on where their opponents are in their preparations.
As such, while D.C. United has finished top of the standings in the round-robin in each of the past two seasons, winning isn’t the top priority for Olsen.
“You always want to win games, but it’s about continuing to build your team and making sure you’re competing against quality competition,” Olsen said. “You’d like to start having a winning mentality, but you’re still playing trialists and you’re still taking care of things before the season begins, so it’s nice to win, but it’s certainly not a priority.”
The level of competition, though, is certainly expected to be high. With former Battery player Tom Heinemann returning to his old stomping grounds for the first time with the Crew, and the second season of the club’s academy teams also attending the event for their own tournament alongside the senior side, what the Battery have been able to accomplish in building the tournament has left the club with a great sense of pride.
“It makes you feel great. It means you’re doing something right,” Anhaeuser said. “It’s our ninth year and we’re putting out and listening and making sure we do the things that are needed to keep bringing the teams back, and as long as we can do that, we hope to keep it going every single year.
“Of course, we know teams can go anywhere they want, but at the same time, but between the city, the facilities, the training facilities and the weather, the city of Charleston is a hard place to beat when you stay here for a week, for fans and for teams. I think we’ve got a great thing going, and we obviously just want to keep it going into the future for the next 10, 15, 20 years.”