USL Feature
Friday, June 10, 2011
By NICHOLAS MURRAY
Before the USL Premier Development League season began, Fresno Fuego coach Scott Alcorn thought he had a side that was capable of competing for the Southwest Division’s berth in the U.S. Open Cup and the overall PDL Championship.
With an undefeated 6-0-2 start to the season, extending Fresno’s overall undefeated streak to 16 games dating back to last season, Alcorn’s belief has proven correct.
“What we have this year is a complete team,” Alcorn said by phone this week. “I know that term is probably overused, but the guys have fallen into their roles within the team, the pecking order within the team, and you’re only as successful as from the bottom up. I don’t think great players can carry you to a championship, it takes the bottom to lift up and I think that’s what’s happened.”
On Saturday, though, the Fuego will face their biggest challenge of the season so far when the also undefeated Ventura County Fusion come to Chuchanski Park in a matchup of the top two teams in the Southwest Division. The Fusion denied the Fuego the division’s Open Cup berth, taking the spot on goal difference after both teams finished qualifying with 4-0-0 records, but the Fuego lead the division now by two points after the Fusion faltered last week with a pair of 1-1 draws against the LA Blues 23 and Southern California Seahorses.
Despite that dip in form for the Fusion, Saturday’s game does appear as though it could be a preview for the PDL Playoffs. The two teams have opened up a five-point lead ahead of the third-placed Seahorses, and Alcorn is expecting the two teams to be playing in the postseason.
”No disrespect to the Seahorses and Orange County, we still have a lot of games left, but it appears to be Ventura and Fuego to make the playoffs,” Alcorn said. “One of us will get the No.1 seed and probably one will get the second seed.”
The two teams have already played this season, with the contest ending in a 0-0 draw in Fresno’s second game of the season and Ventura County’s first. After earning a shutout against a side that has scored 25 goals in seven games since that meeting, Alcorn believes whether his side is able to contain the Fusion’s potent attack that has four players with double-digit points and three players – Mike Magee, Callum Riley and Andrew Rose – who have scored at least four goals will be the key to the game.
“We’re sound defensively, typically for us to score two or three goals is a great game, we were probably on our best game of the year when we put five past the Blues, but I think our challenge is to keep Ventura at a shutout or one goal,” Alcorn said. “They’ve signed some guys from UCLA that are very, very good. They’ve been our nemesis and a team we’ve really battled with for the last five years I’ve been here.”
The Fuego have an excellent defensive record, currently sitting tied for the second-fewest goals conceded in the PDL with only three allowed in eight games. A key to that, according to Alcorn, has been the high pressure they’ve been able to apply on opponents in their defensive thirds, restricting their time and space and the ability to build from the back.
Of course, getting players to buy into a system that will challenge their fitness and endurance can be challenging. With the success the side has achieved with its high pressure, creating scoring chances they’ve been able to take through their opponents errors, it’s been easier for Alcorn to sell the system to his players.
“As a coach you can preach all you want, but until you have success the kids don’t fully buy into it,” Alcorn said. “Because we’ve been successful winning balls in the opponents half and scoring goals off those turnovers, now there’s a collective team effort to continue to do that.
“All of us, the coaches in the PDL, are trying to teach and trying to come up with tactics that work, but until you have success it’s hard to get the kids to buy into it.”
But with the side continuing to press ahead, and with the opportunity to extend its lead at the top of the standings to five points, Alcorn is expecting a big atmosphere in the Fuego’s first home game since May 14.
“It is the game of the season for us until we get to the playoffs,” Alcorn said. “Ventura brings a terrific side in and I’m expecting a very large crowd, 6,000 to 8,000 people again. We’ve been on the road since May 14, so it’s been close to a month, but we had a staff meeting today and we know the community is behind us, so it should be a very large crowd.”