Minnesota United are currently in the middle of an 11-day preseason trip to Mexico. Head coach Carl Craig took some time to talk to Northern Pitch by phone today after a 2-1 victory over Pachuca Reserves, with goals by Christian Ramirez and Lance Laing.
JR: Carl, you had a friendly with the Mexico U-20s in 2014. You played a friendly against Club Leon in 2015. Now you’ve officially announced another friendly against Leon for June. Are you seeing benefits from playing Mexican sides as opposed to playing domestic sides?
CC: Well first off, the football in Mexico is very good. Why Mexico, why not stay at home? I think the tough thing right now is getting an opponent in the US because MLS has started, USL is starting up. Getting opponents is difficult. I think to travel is a valuable experience, sort of a team-builder to have the guys together in one place. It forces relationship building, which is great.
In terms of the opposition, they’re certainly good teams. We’ve got good teams in the US, but it’s difficult to get opponents in Minnesota. Without any opponents available, I don’t see any logistical reason to stay home.
JR: Are you seeing a difference in play from these sides? Different tactics?
CC: I think, being an American team, there’s sort of a rivalry. It doesn’t matter who’s on, they want to beat an American team. So there’s an intensity whenever an American team plays a Mexican team at a competitive level. There’s a good spice to it.
JR: Ibson has been announced to be out for the preseason. There was a Brazilian paper that said he’s getting treated in Brazil.
CC: Yes, that’s correct. That was a decision we made with our doctors. It didn’t make sense to have him come with the team – we just don’t have the resources down here in Mexico. From a psychological aspect, to have him go get treatment in Brazil with his former team’s doctors for these two weeks was better. His interpreters are all with us in Mexico, so if he stayed home, he would be isolated with his family. So it makes sense for him to be there, but he’ll be coming straight back to Minnesota when we finish our trip.
JR: Is he going to be ready for the spring?
CC: I don’t know – I hope so. He’s certainly a valuable player for us. He brings a lot of quality to us. It depends on how he responds to the treatment. You know, he’s working on his quality, working on his hamstrings. If all goes to plan, he will be ready for the spring. I don’t know that he’ll be ready for the first game, but he just might be. It’s all speculation at this point.
JR: Any observations from today’s friendly? Things that you liked, things you want to see worked on?
CC: In the very difficult conditions today (adverse weather conditions), we weren’t quite sharp. I don’t know… It’s tough. It was a tough day, it really was. We gave a stupid goal away again, which has been a sad theme to our preseason. Just a lack of concentration, but we got back into it and created a few chances. Christian scored another goal. I don’t want to be despondent because it has been a very difficult couple of days to get here, get settled into our conditions, so I want to praise the fellas for how they went about their business.
Physically, we’re on the backfoot due to travel and the altitude. We’ve got a game against the Mexican Youth National Team on Saturday over at Pachuca Stadium, so a lot of focus is getting the guys to the right physical state where they can go out and compete on Saturday. The attitude was right today, but physically, we’re struggling. I can only praise them for going about being professional and getting on with it today.
JR: There were three announced trialists that you’ve brought along with you. Jeb Brovsky is a player fans are likely most familiar with. Last year he spent most of his time with New York City at fullback, but today he was in the lineup as a midfielder. How do you see him fitting if he makes the team?
CC: I thought he had a good game as a defensive midfielder, one of those positions which we’re struggling with right now because of injuries to Ibson and Juliano. Essentially we’ve only got Andrei Gotsmanov and Greg Jordan, and both of them played ninety minutes on Saturday, so it’s tough. But Jeb had a good game. We were looking at him originally to possibly compete with Kevin Venegas as a right-back, potentially as cover to JD (Justin Davis) in the left-back position. With all these injuries at defensive midfielder, that’s where we needed him today and he played well. Good, solid player. Lovely fella – fit really well with the group, so we’ll see what happens. I was very pleased with his impact and performance.
JR: Grant Bell came on as a substitute against Omaha on Saturday at right back. Did he see the field today?
CC: Grant started with the second group. Pretty steady, I think he’s in good shape. He’s a little behind the rest of the group as far as experience but in terms of fight and physicality, he fits in. He did alright today. Again, he’s brand new and the least experienced of anyone, but he didn’t let us down, and he didn’t let himself down.
JR: The third trialist wasn’t on many Americans’ radars before this week: Elbio Alvarez. Anything you can tell us about him?
CC: He’s an Uruguayan who signed with Benfica at 17. I’m not sure what his relationship is with the club currently, he came to us from his home in Uruguay. He plays in the number ten position and held the ball well for us, and he can really make a pass. We had the wind on our backs in the first half which made it difficult. It was really strong – any through balls ran off the end of the field. In the second half, it was just as strong before the hail storm started. He did well to hold the ball for us so we could get out. In that sense, I thought he had done well.
JR: One last question before I let you go: How are you handling the switch from Guinness and Newcastle to Negra Modelo?
CC: You don’t have a spy here, do you? [laughing] It’s terrible. Horrible. It’s cheap, but it’s horrible. The only thing I can say about it is that it’s cheap. The food in the restaurant in the hotel is absolutely outstanding and very, very cheap. First class quality stuff. I don’t usually touch Mexican food while I’m in America, but the food here in the restaurants is absolutely outstanding. Full of flavor, wonderful presentation, and dirt cheap. So in that sense, absolutely brilliant.
But the beer is crap. No craft beers here. Peter [Rivard], Ian [Fuller], and me-self are very much craft beer drinkers so that part is tough.
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