Almost everything you need to know about the makeup of Major League Soccer talent is right there along the Columbus Crew back line.
It's a skilled and diverse foursome that spans the spectrum in terms of age, experience, personality and national flavor. If advertising types sought a cross-section of MLS roster prototypes to feature in a campaign, they could just round up the Crew starting defenders.
There's the long-time U.S. international, the shaggy shepherd of the bunch. There's a blond-haired, fair-eyed All-American type, a potential U.S. national team star on the rise. There's a scruffy convert, the lunch pail kid, the kind of guy who just plain keeps after it and wills himself through sheer determination into becoming a solid contributor. And there's the mid-level international, the kind of foreign flavor that truly makes the MLS soup, a guy with enough talent to layer in solid contributions, but not so decorated as to break the bank.
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SIGHTS & SOUNDS
If you looked at the categories of players who comprise the bulk of MLS, the only thing missing here would be a highfalutin' international star. Of course, the Crew have that element covered -- just not along the back line. Argentinean playmaker Guillermo Barros Schelotto has enough foreign star power to cover the field.
When the spotlight pointed toward the Crew this year, it usually fell on the attackers, guys like Schelotto, Robbie Rogers and Alejandro Moreno, fellows with all the flash and dash. That's just the way it is in soccer.
Less heralded, but equally important in the Crew's league-best plus-14 goal difference, was the Columbus back line. With 36 goals conceded, the Crew finished third-best among Major League Soccer's 14-team roster. Only Houston and Chicago were better, and even then, not by much. Houston allowed 32 goals over the 30-game campaign, tops in MLS.
But it's not the raw numbers that make the Crew's back foursome such an interesting bunch. Rather, it's that diversity of makeup. Frankie Hejduk is the wise old vet, which is amazing for people who know Hejduk, because he still looks and acts like that same fresh face that once buzzed about the pitch in those bad Tampa Bay Mutiny kits in the inaugural MLS season.
He's on the right, never far from Chad Marshall, who was just named MLS Defender of the Year. The U.S. national team is stacked at center back at the moment, but Marshall is a guy who could well shake up the mix, coming off a breakthrough MLS campaign.
Marshall is paired in the middle with Danny O'Rourke, a former central midfielder now reinvented as a solid center back. If Marshall is the fancy new sports car and Hejduk is the timeless old classic roadster, then O'Rourke is the good, solid, reliable four-door of the fleet.
Crew mastermind Sigi Schmid initiated the conversion, and after a rocky start O'Rourke has settled nicely.
On the left is Gino Padula, a guy that Schmid believes doesn't get enough credit, a bit of a journeyman who spent his best days at Queens' Park Rangers on London's west side.
Padula surely has stories from a soccer career that traversed Argentina, Spain, England, France and now the United States. And yet, Hejduk may be the most fascinating of the foursome. Coming out of UCLA in 1996 he was a flop-topped surfer dude from SoCal, an easy-going guy off the field who poured forth with energy between the white lines like few others could.
Now, 13 years in, Hejduk is ... a flop-topped surfer dude from sunny SoCal, still easy going off the grass and a bundle of non-stop super-fuel on it. In other words, he hasn't changed a smidge. Well, he hasn't changed, that is, except for that part about being 34 now, which makes him exactly 10 years older than Marshall.
Hejduk, despite having collected two World Cups and two Olympic tournaments for his resume, does appear to be that same guy from back in the day. That shouldn't surprise anyone, since Hejduk says he still feels like that guy.
"I still feel good," he said. "I still feel fit, and I still take pride in keeping myself that way. As long as you're eating right and treating your body right and doing the things right you should be doing as a professional, it will extend your career. I want to play this game for as long as I can."
He won't be playing as long as Marshall, who fills the billing as one of Columbus' emerging stars. Rogers gets more ink, as speculation rises and falls about when or if the dynamic left-sided attacker might test himself once again in Europe. (Rogers already played briefly in Holland.)
But Marshall could be on the European scouts' lists as well. He's out of contract this year, which makes any such move far less problematic. Crew fans would surely be conflicted about it all. If Marshall remains Stateside, he could be the defensive cornerstone at Crew Stadium for years to come. But fans recognize the value of players steeling themselves in Europe. And who would deny the man such an opportunity at such a great age, 24, to do so?
O'Rourke probably won't be entertaining European offers for the time being. He's happy enough to have converted himself into a fellow who could pitch in with 28 starts this year. And what a 28-game whirlwind it was; in the early days of the switch, he sometimes looked like a kid fighting out of his weight class, in all honesty.
O'Rourke's decision making has improved dramatically over the 8-month campaign -- something that had to happen, because promising youngster Andy Iro was ready to nudge O'Rourke off the starting block if need be. But O'Rourke's improvement came steadily, mostly in the area of making choices like a defender, not like a midfielder.
"He just needed to get to the point where [the choices] became rote," Schmid said, "where they are ingrained into his decision-making."
Padula had the decision making down. His adjustment was cultural, although he had moved around enough that he managed that process smoothly, too.
Padula, 32, really rounds out the set. All those years in various leagues, at a variety of levels, taught the Argentinean left back things about the game that perhaps no one else along the Crew back line knows. All that experience shows, according to Schmid.
Ask the manager about Columbus' underrated guys and Padula's name is first off Schmid's lips. Padula just does all the little things right, Schmid says. His consistency keeps things calm and predictable long the left side.
Padula might not get into the opposition box and prowl for the big headers like Marshall. He might not be quite as aggressive in charging forward along the outside, the way Hejduk does on the right.
But Padula does his thing surely and steadily. And besides, if he did all those other things, it might just scuttle that diversity that makes this such a perfectly balanced bunch.
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