Viva La Revolution
Tuesday Morning, June 23:
The flight to Columbus leaves at 10:00 a.m., but I got to Logan Airport by 8:30 a.m. No way I'm gonna be late. I've been around pro sports long enough to know better than that. I can just imagine one of the jesters, maybe Matt Reis or Jay Heaps, thinking it would funny to make the journalist in their midst pay a fine for being late just like the players. At Logan, I find the team's director of soccer operations, Mike Burns, and assistant coach, Paul Mariner, waiting sleepily by the American Eagle check-in counter. Goalkeeper coach David Vanole is already at the gate because he is kind of anal about getting an exit row seat. "Don't ask," Burns says, shrugging.
Tony Quinn/WireImage
Clint Dempsey: As he goes, so the Revs go.
Tomorrow's late-June, mid-week game with the Columbus Crew-the first game since the Revs first loss of the season-is just another game, one of 30. A win is important, but a loss will not be the end of the world.
Tuesday Afternoon:
I haven't been in Columbus in five years. It's still your average mid-sized Midwestern city: clean, spacious, friendly. The Scioto River meets the Olentangy, and I-70 crosses I-71. In the near distance are endless farmlands, and above it all a sky as wide and beautiful as an ocean.
We're staying in the Doubletree Suites, right downtown. Sweet! Doubletrees give out warm chocolate chip cookies upon check in. Burns, the former U.S. international, checks in, hands out room keys, announces the schedule-"Boys, the bus leaves for training at 2:15!"-and the players walk away. They don't talk among each other or joke around nearly as much as other teams I've seen up close. Honestly, the guys still seem asleep.
A seven-year MLSer himself, Burns goes about his new job as the team's administrator and sometime guru as matter-of-factly as possible. He'll protect his team vociferously, but he doesn't tolerate absurd player requests. "Figure it out!" is a favorite response. He gives me my meal per diem: $86 for two days. "Don't spend it all in one place," he advises. I'm in the lobby by 2:10.
The players trickle in, dressed in flip-flops, carrying their boot bags. Walking to the bus, Clint Dempsey and Shalrie Joseph argue over who originally recorded "These Boots Are Made for Walkin'." "Willie Nelson," Joseph says. "Willie Nelson?!" Dempsey exclaims. "I don't think he'd ever do anything so&weak. You sure?" "Actually," I interrupt, "it was Nancy Sinatra." "Who?" Joseph asks. "Yeah, I told you it was a chick," Dempsey says. "Greg, I don't know what's scarier," Joseph declares, "that you know that or that I don't."
At the Crew's well-maintained training facility, the Revs kind of slouch into things. They lace up their cleats slowly, limber up half-heartedly. Goalkeeper Matt Reis is the last player to hit the field, just as the rest of the guys circle up to play keep away. "All right, mother b*****," he shouts. "Five v. two!" Reis is unquestionably the team's vocal leader. He keeps everything loose and light with quick jokes and the laidback ho-hum of his native California. It's his mandate to make sure no major conflicts arise. The Revs make that job easy by avoiding the cliques and animosities found on some teams.
"We're all on the same page," says rookie and All-Star defender Michael Parkhurst. "The team chemistry is unbelievable." During keepaway, Parkhurst demonstratively counts the consecutive passes out loud.
Assistant coach Paul Mariner runs the training session. He puts the guys through their warmup paces, then into small-sided games. "When you pass the ball, mean it!" he shouts at first-year player Connolly Edozien.
Head coach Steve Nicol watches from afar. The team is basically his reflection. The former Liverpool and Scotland defender has seen and done it all, including winning the European Cup in '84. Now, he carries a Zen-like air of authority-but never arrogance. He preaches the necessity of keeping perspective, which explains a lot about how, no matter how many wins they rack up or how many times they find themselves down a goal, the New England players never let a specific moment dictate their actions.
He doles out his advice in short-burst snippets of old-school English league wisdom. "Good gamble," Nicol tells Pat Noonan after the striker tries an audacious through ball. "Good risk." Watching Nicol on the training ground is like watching a general poring over his battlefield maps. Like how he played, Nicol, coaches from instinct and trusts his gut. Even when criticizing, he has a light but effective touch. "He's never rattled," midfielder Steve Ralston tells me later. "And he makes sure we know that winning now doesn't mean anything."
Wednesday Afternoon:
Routine. Everything is about routine, regimen, patterns. I've been with the Revs for 24 hours and already I remember why I retired from playing: I bristle under routines. Every player finds his own way to cope. Some guys, like Parkhurst, wake up early. Others, like Parkhurt's roommate Dempsey, sleep until noon. "Boring," Parkhurst says about road trips. "7:30 games are so late, and we're on our own until pre-game meal. We just watch TV, usually go for a walk, stretch a little bit. Watch more TV. The older guys give us a little advice about how to deal with the road. Matt [Reis] and Jay [Heaps] are always giving us advice."
At the pre-game meal, it's the same food I remember from when I was playing eight years ago: chicken, fish, pasta. "Same old crap," is how one player describes it. No one says much, except at the coaches' table, where Nicol and Mariner are holding court with tales of the good old days. Or, in most cases, tales of the psychotic old days before modern training techniques and million- dollar babies. "We had to run the 17-mile Cornish Trail when I was at Plymouth," Mariner recalls. Nicol chuckles, and throws down another potato, or "tattie," as he calls it in his native brogue; he's the only one in the room with a clue what the Cornish Trail is.
"At Ipswich," Mariner continues, "we had a coach whose fitness philosophy was, We run 'em til deyre fooked. 'How do you know when they're f*****?' someone asked him. 'Cooz we run 'em til they cahn't run any moor,' he said. 'Den we run 'em some moor. Den deyre fooked.'"
Wednesday Evening:
Two hours before the game, and the bus is ready to go. It's only a 10-minute ride to Crew Stadium. The mood among the players is quiet and relaxed. The calm before the storm. It's always like this before games in the pros. The practice, the weightlifting, the film sessions-that's all prep work. Fundamentally, players are paid for the games; they are about to go to work. They need to find that place where they can perform at their best. Joseph listens to reggae. Joe Franchino stares out the window.
Crew fans are already milling about in the stadium two hours before the game. "They love the Crew, don't they?" Pat Noonan remarks to me as we disembark. "And the girls are real friendly." The stewards and vendors expect a big crowd. After all, it's Buck-a-Brat night. The Revs have never won on Buck-a-Brat night.
In the locker room, the players are still eerily quiet. They lost their last game and seem a little tense. There is none of the usual joking around and attempts to loosen up. And the nervousness spills out onto the field. The game goes like many of the other Revs games: The team comes out flat, and in the 4th minute, Columbus striker Edson Buddle finds himself alone with the keeper after a deflected shot. He slots it home unchallenged. 1-0, Columbus.
The Revs are reeling a bit and they can't find the rhythm that has raised them to the top of the table. But in the 24th minute, Noonan, the Revs most consistent player, sneaks to the far post and latches on to a Dempsey cross. Then, just before the halftime whistle, Dempsey gets his first goal in a month when he meets a corner kick with a powerful diving header to give the Revs a lead. In the second half, Dempsey and Noonan link up again when Dempsey flicks a corner kick to the far post for Noonan to finish. 3-1, Revs.
After a tough month of subpar performances, the Revs engine, Dempsey, who had six goals in the first six games, is back. "I went up to Clint yesterday," Reis tells me in the locker room after the game. "I said, 'As you go, we go.' And look what happened!"
Another city. Another win. Another night trying to wind down postgame. The mood in the locker room and on the bus back to the hotel is serious, as if that game that was just played wasn't a game at all. It was a job. A job well done.
The young guys, like Dempsey, Joseph, and Riley, rush upstairs, get decked out, and hit the town, probably up to Short North, the cool bar district. I wander down to the hotel bar and find some of the old guys, Reis, Franchino, Burns, Vanole. Pat Noonan and his father, who'd driven in from St. Louis, sit at the end of the bar. This is not the Oak Bar. It's entirely nondescript, with the "usual" beers and some nut mix. The bartender wants to close up, but Mr. Noonan convinces him to stay open a while longer. He's with his son, who had two goals in a crucial victory. He wants to enjoy a few pops. Franchino says good night and takes a couple of "roadies" up to his room. Nicol and Mariner are in their room, going through the usual postgame routine: sipping Stella Artois, smoking cigarettes, and, yes, watching the game tape.
Thursday Morning:
Everyone's sleepy in the morning. The bus to the airport leaves at 7:00 a.m. I'm downstairs by 6:45. As we approach Boston, we do a full circle around the city. I make out Harvard Stadium, the John Hancock Building, Dorchester Hill, the JFK Library. On the ground, the players collect their own bags at baggage claim and with only a few words to each other head off in their various directions. It's not even noon on Thursday and they're getting off of work. They've spent 48 hours together on the road: Time to disperse.
Striker Magazine is America's Ultimate Soccer Magazine. It is published quarterly by Harris Publications.
