Is this possibly the slowest news week we've had since the still-young season began? Maybe, but I suppose that's to be expected. We play Saturday at Portland, and while I'm not going to bring you a full-fledged match preview today, there are some things worth discussing.
Or, you know, I hope there are. That one.
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Here's a bit of required listening from Beyond the Pitch: an interview with the one, the only Garth Lagerwey.
Garth talks in depth about Real Salt Lake, his former playing career, prospects in Asia (not of the prospecting kind), and much, much more. Beyond the Pitch is always worth a listen, and this is no exception. It's boosted, of course, by its relevancy to our beloved RSL, but, you know, they talk about other things, too. I remember in particular one excellent episode about the Egyptian stadium riots.
At any rate, go give it a listen.
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We've been hearing for the last year that the core group is on its last legs together: While I sincerely hope this isn't the case, it may well be so, what with the high cost of retaining players year after year. One of those players with a contract that expires at the end of 2012 is the wizardish Tony Beltran — one of my personal favorites. The prospect of seeing him and others go — well, let's hope it doesn't come to that.
Of course, no team stays together forever. We'll eventually lose some of our favorites to many things: a desire to ply their trade overseas, retirement, a gradual drop in fitness as they grow older, falling out of favor with the back room staff — any number of things could happen. Do we want them to? Hardly. But it'll happen.
How do we solve this little problem that's brewing? We do what we've been doing. We bring in the hidden prospects, the unknown talents, the rejected — I'll stop now before this becomes a polemic, but we've clearly been doing something right to have these key, class players on our side. Why that would suddenly go away, I don't know.
We've also got a new resource: the academy. It sounds a bit like we're ancient Greek philosophers, constantly talking about the academy, but we're nearing a point where we can expect prospects to start popping up a little more. Who those prospects might be we can only speculate at this point, but it's exciting nonetheless.
First things first, though, I suppose we ought to start getting some minutes for academy boy Nico Muñiz. I'm convinced he's not entirely far off from that. Lalo Fernandez, third-choice goalkeeper, is a bit of a different story: With two very good keepers ahead of him, I don't expect we'll see him for some time, save for some bench appearances when Nick Rimando is out playing with the national boys.
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Right, a short one today, but that's what you get when there's not a whole lot of news.
Till tomorrow, then!
I apologize if the headline makes little sense. The alliteration took me. And the person responsible for writing the headline has been sacked.
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