FC Tucson News Release -- www.fctucson.com
Saturday, June 16, 2012
VENTURA, Calif. — For FC Tucson assistant coach Henry Brauner, a member of Ventura County’s 2009 PDL National Championship team, Friday night was almost literally a trip down memory lane.
Only “memory lane” was the Ventura Highway.
Brauner remembered the Santa Clarita exit where he and his teammates used to get to their temporary housing and the Cal Lutheran University sign along the highway he drove by every time he went to and from training and even the particular beach where he and his former teammates used to hang out. And three years later, as Brauner sits in the hotel lobby of the Crowne Plaza Hotel, another reminder of his past with the Fusion comes to mind: they held their pre-game meals, and national championship celebration, there.
But now things are a different.
“I know I played here and I did well but at the end of the day I’m from Tucson,” Brauner said. “I work for FC Tucson. This is my hometown, this is what I care about, this is what I bleed and this is ultimately for our city. The three points is all that matters.”
FC Tucson’s match with Ventura County on Saturday night at 7 p.m. at Ventura College, the intersection of Brauner’s past and present, is a showdown between the two top teams in the PDL Southwest Division. Both teams have 19 points in eight games. (Ventura County would be first in a tiebreaker because of goal difference). The scenario is pretty simple: a win equals sole position of first place and an inside track to the division title.
But while both clubs have identical 6-1-1 records, they’ve gotten to those records in very different ways. Ventura County has been an offensive juggernaut, leading the division in goals scored (23). FC Tucson, on the other hand, has been known more for its defense, which was responsible for a 548-minute shutout streak.
Unlike FC Tucson, Ventura County’s defense has been as statistically impressive as its offense, allowing just five goals. FC Tucson, on the other hand, hasn’t matched its defensive superiority on the offense. The team has scored just nine goals in eight games, the second-fewest in the division.
Brauner believes that the team’s midfield, particularly players like Donny Toia and Nick Marshall, could be the key to a win over the Fusion. Brauner pointed out that to beat a team like Ventura County, counter-attacking is helpful. Because FC Tucson is very athletic on the outside, both at midfield and defense, said Brauner, the team may be better suited at using the Fusion’s offensive aggressiveness against them.
“When teams send a lot of people forward, ‘in transition’ is when you can usually catch teams,” Brauner said.
FC Tucson will also have to deal with playing on the road against a team averaging 1,000 fans a game. But Brauner doesn’t believe the team will be rattled.
“The players will be fine [because] the schools they come from, they’re playing in front of raucous crowds week in and week out,” Brauner said. He later added, “The players will be fine. It’s nothing they haven’t seen yet.”
And for Brauner the entire setting will also be something he’s seen before: the blue and orange, the raucous crowd and the smell of the ocean drifting inland. Memories he cherishes from an unforgettable 2009 season. Brauner still keeps in touch with many of his teammates from that year. He will even attend the wedding for one of them in January.
But his playing days are long gone and as a coach his prospective is much different, he says. For one, he’s concentrating on beating the Fusion rather than winning for them. And, secondly, he can appreciate the magnitude of a big game like this more. As a player, he said, games like this were just another day. So even if his players don’t soak it all in, Brauner will do it for them.
“I’m very excited for them,” Brauner said. “For them to be here. For them to play against my old team. It’s just a good feeling.”