Steve Pastorino talks to his former colleagues and players from Real Salt Lake a year after a shakeup removed him as the club's General Manager.
By Steve Pastorino
SALT LAKE CITY, UT (May 2, 2008) USSoccerPlayers -- This past week, on the first anniversary of Dave Checketts’ great dismantling of Real Salt Lake, I got together with some of the old gang (my wife calls us the “RSL exiles”) at Paradise Bakery in Salt Lake City. Like a class reunion, everyone had a story to tell, laughter flowed and no one’s life was quite the same.
The lunch prompted me to reach out to a dozen current and former members of the RSL organization, asking many the simple question, “how has your life changed since last April?”
Former head coach John Ellinger has landed in Frisco, Texas with U.S. Youth Soccer. He serves as the Technical Director for elite young players. He is still trying to sell his Draper home.
First assistant Peter Mellor went into the mergers and acquisitions business, sort of. He signed on as director of coaching at the Florida Premier Soccer Club in Ft. Myers and then merged it with another to create Island Coast Soccer Alliance.
Brian Johnson is the last of the original technical staff still at RSL. He chose his words carefully out of respect for both Ellinger and his current boss, Jason Kreis, saying only that things were “different” now. Johnson continues to be a loyal, upbeat assistant and an important link to the team’s earliest days.
Kreis, meantime, is finding out it can be lonely at the top. A private and intensely self-critical person to begin with, he is “truly enjoying the fantastic challenge,” but it doesn’t come without cost or sacrifice. “The difficulties of dealing with players, some who were former teammates, and trying to separate emotions from it… I’m not sure I do it well,” he said.
The difficulty of the situation was echoed by others around the organization, including one who suggested that Kreis’ rapid ascension may end in a free fall. “Throw any player into his scenario and no one will come out unscathed,” said one of those former teammates.
Kreis has sent away 20 of the 28 players on the roster he inherited last May. Only five still play in Major League Soccer. The Home Depot Center in Los Angeles houses two. Chris Klein plays alongside celebrity teammates David Beckham and Landon Donovan for the Galaxy. Across the hallway, Atiba Harris suits up for Chivas USA, a 2005 expansion team like RSL.
Comparing RSL and Chivas USA, Harris candidly said, “One has a team that trains and plays at the best facility in the U.S., and the other tours the state to train and plays on a bad turf field.” He did add, “but I think that will all change soon.”
The other three are Kyle Brown, Jeff Cunningham and Mehdi Ballouchy. Each is trying to earn playing time in Houston, Toronto and Colorado respectively. Cunningham has a goal in six games, coming off the bench in all but two. Ballouchy missed the international portion of the Rapids’ preseason due to his immigration status, but made the 18-man roster last weekend and is looking very sharp in practice, said Rapids assistant John Murphy.
Jamie Watson may resurface with his hometown F.C. Dallas squad. The former fan favorite had trials at Toronto FC and Seattle in the preseason but is learning first-hand the perils of professional soccer.
Led by Freddy Adu (Benfica), five players went abroad in the soccer diaspora. Adu has scored clutch goals in cup competitions, but hasn’t cracked the starting lineup for the Portuguese giants.
Defenders Jack Stewart, Danny Torres and Willis Forko all landed in Norway. Forko is the only one in the first division (the Tippeligaen), where he has started every game for Bodo Glimt.
Stewart checked in from Moss FK, where the team has four ties and a win in its first five games. Stewart has yet to see first-team action. “The transition to European football hasn’t been that tough,” he wrote in an email. “The biggest change has been in myself, trying to find the form I had before I entered MLS and coaches tried to change how I play. It’s all about confidence in self and they preach that a lot over here.”
Danny Torres landed in Bryne FK, about 25 minutes from Stavanger “the oil capital of Norway.” (Because we all know where that is!) Bryne is off to a 1-3-1 start as they also seek promotion to the Tippeligaen. Torres’ wife, Alex, is expecting their first child soon, and he said he hopes to return home to Costa Rica at some point and finish his career with Saprissa.
Reversing the trend of MLS players coming from South America, Luis Tejada is tearing up the Colombian Copa Mustang with six goals this season for América de Cali. Bolivian club The Strongest made overtures to acquire him before the spring season, but the Panama native is happy to be closer to his home.
Two RSL ’07 alums now toil in the United Soccer Leagues. Steve Curfman plays for the Carolina Railhawks where he scored in his debut. Not to be outdone, Chris Brown has two goals and an assist in his first three games with Portland, where fans have quickly embraced him.
And of the eight survivors left on the RSL roster from last May, just three are veterans of the team’s 2005 inaugural season: Andy Williams, Kenny Cutler and Nic Besagno.
“Call me ol’ Mr. Reliable,” said Williams, sounding like the collective aches and pains of ten MLS seasons are wearing down his body.
Carey Talley, who joined the team after the 2005 season, said in his understated fashion, “there are many, many, many new faces.”
Finally, there’s Eddie Pope, who retired last fall and now works for the MLS Player’s Union. He might be the only person who arrived at and departed from RSL on his own terms. Perhaps we’ll toast to that at the next reunion.
It’s just too bad that, as one person said, “the restaurant won’t be big enough to hold everyone before long.”
Former RSL GM Steve Pastorino will run the Ogden Marathon this month to raise money for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. Find out more at http://www.active.com/donate/tntdms/tntdmsTPastor2. Steve welcomes your feedback at pastorinosoccer@comcast.net.
