Los Angeles Blues Feature
Thursday, October 13, 2011
LOS ANGELES – During the 2011 USL PRO season, fans of the Los Angeles Blues came to appreciate Head Coach Charlie Naimo’s passion and honest analyses. Naimo’s first interview since the end of the campaign was no different, as the man in charge of the Blues addressed the loss of Argentine superstar Walter Gaitán, the respect earned by his first-year side, and the role of his own shortcomings in failing to win the championship.
The Blues raised some eyebrows by posting a regular season record of 8-7-9 and reaching the playoffs in their inaugural campaign, before losing 3-2 to the Harrisburg City Islanders in the National Division semifinals. While acknowledging the achievement, Naimo stayed true to the goals he had set prior to 2011.
Los Angeles was hit hard by the departure of its attacking superstar Walter Gaitán a third of the way into the season, as well as by persistent injury problems and a three-week stretch without any official matches from late May to mid-June.
“There’s disappointment that the record wasn’t better and that we didn’t go further in the playoffs,” Naimo said. “We all felt that we could have, because we played pretty good soccer throughout the year and didn’t really have a lot to fix. With a little tweak here and a little tweak there, with the right player additions, I think we could have easily had five more wins in the regular season.
“We dealt with a lot of ups and downs during the year. Obviously losing Walter hurt, and so did some of the injuries we had. In addition, we got a little stale during that long stretch without matches. While we navigated through all that and had a good year for a startup franchise, we definitely didn’t meet my own expectations and the expectations of the ownership.”
While lacking consistency throughout 2011, the Blues did show occasional flashes of their potential, such as in the 3-0 rout of hosts Pittsburgh Riverhounds in May or the hard-fought 2-1 road win over the powerful Richmond Kickers in July.
“I think a lot of people in the league already looked at us as a formidable competitor, but I would have loved to prove to everyone that the team was good enough to win a championship in its inaugural season,” Naimo said. “I keep hearing that we did well for a first-year team, but the goal can’t be to be great for a first-year team. You want to just be great – period.”
Once again stressing the quality of the 2011 Los Angeles roster, the man responsible for assembling it blamed himself for his side falling short of winning the USL PRO title. Finishing third in the National Division, the Blues failed to secure home-field advantage for their playoff clash with Harrisburg, the team they had already faced three times in the regular season. The City Islanders would maintain their unbeaten record against Naimo’s men to move on to the division final and eventually the championship game.
”To put it bluntly, I felt that we were as good as anybody in terms of pure talent,” Naimo offered. “We identified great players and played with or outplayed almost every team in the league. We were really only outplayed in maybe two games. I attribute the many draws and some of the losses to the fact that I failed to build a great team.
“Take our season series against Harrisburg, for example. We played them four times and were probably the better team in three of those games, but we didn’t win once. That’s because we had too many different personalities and too little fire and dedication. What made Harrisburg more effective and got them into the final was how they played for their badge and got the most out of every single player. I respect them for that. It made them a great team.”
So great is Naimo’s respect for the City Islanders that it has served to inspire his vision for the Blues.
“I want a Harrisburg-type mentality for this organization,” he said. “This year, we didn’t have a team that battled for the Blues brand from top to bottom. That needs to change, so my focus right now is on finding guys who take pride in being part of this club. We want to be a group where everyone fights for each other. Every single day a player is here, he needs to be a great pro and work his butt off. Everyone needs to understand what the club is about and be dying to help it succeed.”
Having identified the lack of pride as one of the reasons for his side’s failure to reach the ultimate goal, Naimo also outlined concrete on-field factors that cost the Blues points throughout the season.
”The things we needed to work on were always evident,” he reflected. “One of them was defending set plays. We didn’t have enough gritty guys that were determined to stay with their mark no matter what. Even though we didn’t always get punished, when you look at the video of our games, there were always guys open on set plays. Not surprisingly, that did end up costing us games.
”We also did a poor job of finishing our opportunities. Some of the chances we created were brilliant, but we lacked a true finisher. After Walter [Gaitán] left, nobody on this team was able to play that role. It speaks volumes that our top scorer, Cesar Rivera, was really a center midfielder that we converted into a forward. With a true striker on the team, I’m sure we would have had several more goals.”
The Los Angeles Head Coach admitted that the departure of Gaitán didn’t only deal his team a major blow in the goal-scoring department. Equipped with the exceptional vision and skill that had enabled the 34-year-old to star for Spain’s Villareal, Argentina’s Boca Juniors and Mexico’s Tigres, Gaitán frequently pulled the strings in the Blues midfield early in the season. Leading his USL PRO side with four goals from seven games in June, he opted to return to his native Argentina to play for first division outfit Atlético the Rafaela.
“We really couldn’t find a number 10 to replace Walter and orchestrate our flow of play, so it really hurt us when he left,” Naimo said. “If he had stayed, we would have had close to a perfect team for this level of play. Once we had him signed, we really built the whole team around him. In hindsight that was obviously unfortunate, but anyone would do that. You never think that you might lose a guy like that after the season has started.
“I think we recovered from the loss to some extent, but you’re never going to replace a guy like Gaitán in USL PRO. In my opinion, he was hands down the best player in the league. There were great players and good number 10s, but no one like him. I honestly believe he could star in MLS if he played for the right team with the right style of play.”
While the Blues’ finishing woes and difficulties defending set plays were recurring issues throughout the campaign, Naimo acknowledged that his team was able to improve in another problem area.
“An Achilles heel we were able to fix was our vulnerability to long balls over the top of our defense,” he offered. “That had really been hurting us earlier in the season whenever our midfielders and forwards gave opposing players too much time one the ball. After we identified the problem, it took our backs a while to realize, ‘We’re weak here, so let’s drop deeper on the field to give ourselves a better chance to respond to counter-attacks'."
The Los Angeles Head Coach will likely have a chance to evaluate potential new defenders and attacking players soon, as Blues management is working to finalize several high-profile international exhibition matches for the coming months. However, Naimo was quick to point out that most roster decisions for the upcoming USL PRO season likely won’t be made until later his year or early 2012.
“These friendlies are mostly for the fans,” Naimo explained. “As we’re growing and making a lot of moves to improve the business side of the club, we also need to show the people in the area that our brand of soccer is attractive and worth seeing."
While Naimo is waiting for the conclusion of the season in other leagues, this week’s commencement of regular training sessions has the Los Angeles Head Coach inevitably transitioning into preseason mode. By reflecting on this year’s USL PRO campaign, he closed by identifying the most central job requirements for potential 2012 roster applicants.
“Our players this year weren’t holding themselves accountable enough,” he said. “I’m not a big believer in punishing guys that don’t do what is expected of them and then giving them another shot. I usually just try to sign a new player, because I want people who have the right mentality within them. If it’s within you, you’ll mark your guy not because you’re scared of losing your starting spot, but because you’re a winner and you know it’s the right thing to do.
“For our training sessions, we’ll be bringing in different players to look at. But we know there is a lot of interest, so we won’t bring in anyone we don’t think has a chance to make an impact. So it will likely be a smaller group for now, and we’ll be looking to find players who are both great professionals and great people. We want guys you enjoy being around and that you know will work their socks off and have your back if needed. That’s how to build a successful team.”