FRISCO, Texas -- FC Dallas officially kicked off their on-field preparations on Wednesday morning with the Hoops' first training session of 2009. While the cast was a bit depleted, it was still a spirited workout that lasted nearly two hours.
All told, FCD were missing 10 players from their roster. Forward Kenny Cooper is away with the U.S. national team until this weekend. Three players -- top draft pick Peri Marosevic, Brek Shea and Anthony Wallace, are in camp with the U.S. under-20 national team. Brazilian Andre Rocha is awaiting his visa while countryman Marcelo Saragosa awaits his green card.
Recent draft picks George John and Brian Shriver were also absent. John and recently signed center back Steve Purdy were both getting physicals and should be ready to practice Thursday. Shriver is still in school at North Carolina and his status will be further evaluated.
But there was one absence that piqued the interest of the media in attendance: midfielder Dax McCarty, who last fall requested a trade and remains back in his home state of Florida.
"It just wasn't a great situation for me last year with Dax and it wasn't a great situation for him with me," FCD head coach Schellas Hyndman admitted. "One of the things that Dax asked me is that he wanted to be traded. We are giving Dax the opportunity to be evaluated and be traded by someone. So he's not here mostly because of my request."
The Hoops' boss admitted that he still thinks highly of the member of last summer's U.S. Olympic team.
"He's a young player," Hyndman said. "He's a skillful player. I never want to say he's not a good player. I don't think we see things the same. I want the best for this young player because I think he does have a future in MLS soccer. I just don't know if his future will be here."
One new face who made his first appearance on the FCD training field was left-sided midfielder Dave van den Bergh, who was acquired from New York last week in a trade.
"It's good," van den Bergh said. "It's exciting, getting to know the players and coaching staff. It's a new start for everyone and for me as well. What happened in the past is in the past. We're just looking for this year and it's fresh. We've got the highest expectations for this year. We have to improve last year's results. That's the first goal. I just need to adapt myself to the style of play that they have here and just work hard in the preseason."
Some thought that Hyndman's first session might feature little or no ball work. That was definitely not the case.
"My philosophy is very simple," Hyndman said. "I think the players are all soccer players because they enjoy it. They enjoy playing, have a gift of being a pro and they need a ball. If you don't have a ball, you do take away the enjoyment. I think we have enough exercises we can do to get them involved in fitness but through chasing down a ball or controlling a ball. I don't think you'll ever see a training (session) out here where there's not a ball."
After taking the reins last June following the dismissal of Steve Morrow in mid-May, the FCD coach feels that he is still putting his stamp on the squad.
"This is becoming more my team," Hyndman said. "It's also my first practice with a new group for a season. I thought that the training we did today was very productive. There are six things that we're going to try and do in preseason. The first thing is we're going to try to become better individual defenders with pressure on the ball, coverage and balance. We want to become better individual attacking players. We're going to work a lot on attacking in the flanks and creating numbers up. The third thing you want to do is develop some style of play. I hope that our style of play is going to be an attractive style, a good defending style with winning balls, being able to counter and use transition."
"The fourth area we're going to work on is our structure, a complete team structure on defending and on attacking. The fifth area we want to work on is going to be on set pieces. The sixth and final thing we're going to try to do in preseason is fitness," Hyndman continued. "We want to play as many games as we can in preseason so we get players good opportunities. The roster has been cut from 28 to 24 and I have to get games so I can evaluate players. In the morning, we're going to train more on technical and tactical. In the evenings, we're going to do bigger numbers."
While FCD have addressed many of their needs in the offseason, one major one, finding an attacking central midfielder, remains unsatisfied.
"I don't know if this is the year that we have all of our players," Hyndman said. "I think it's still going to take another year. I think it's going to be another transition. That No. 10 position, we've yet to fill. Whether we can fill it this year, if we have to wait until June or until next year, we have to have those three pieces together to make the puzzle complete. It's not the end of the team if we don't get the No. 10 because I think we've got adequate players."
Hyndman added he still has some time to try to add that player and maybe a few others to his team but that window is drawing to a close. "I think right now, we may have a couple of weeks to do that," he said.
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