If you missed Real Salt Lake Winterfest at Rio Tinto Stadium on Saturday, you missed a great Q&A session with Claret-and-Cobalt General Manager Garth Lagerwey.
Lagerwey on Saturday discussed RSL’s 2012 season, the big roster moves the team made last Monday and his expectations for 2013. We’ve taken the time to list a few highlights from the Q&A, which can be viewed in its entirety above.
Top priority: Sign players capable of scoring in the biggest moments
Lagerwey talked at length on Saturday about RSL’s struggles to score in its biggest home matches over the years.
The team didn’t score at Rio Tinto Stadium in the 2012 playoffs, the 2012 CONCACAF Champions League Group Stage finale, the 2011 CCL Final or the 2008 Eastern Conference Final. RSL did score a lone goal in the home leg of its 2010 playoff series against Dallas, but that wasn’t enough to put the team through to the next round.
"Five games, the five biggest games in the history of this building, we've scored one goal," Lagerwey said.
That striking statistic has Lagerwey looking for new forwards to come in and pair leading-scorer Alvaro Saborio. Expect RSL to look to Central and South America for the new charges.
“If you're going to win the biggest games, especially in a sport like soccer where it's very difficult to score goals, you have to have special players," Lagerwey said. "That doesn't mean big-price stars, but it means guys who are willing to take the responsibility to step up in the biggest moments and say, 'I'm going to score. The team's not going to score, I am.'
“We need to adjust our mentality, and we need to bring in players who are going to accept that responsibility,” he added. “That's the only way we're going to change that pattern of always being pretty good but never being great. Our goal is to be great."
RSL is high on its current group of midfielders
Though the team traded former regular Will Johnson to Portland on Monday, Lagerwey is still very high on Real Salt Lake’s current crop of midfielders.
The RSL GM is obviously comfortable with Kyle Beckerman and Ned Grabavoy and is hopeful that Javier Morales – who is currently out of contract – will return to the club next season. Lagerwey also has big expectations for 19-year-old Luis Gil, who will likely step into Johnson’s role as a full-time starter in 2013.
“If Javier is to come back, we’d have Javi, Kyle and Ned as three lockdown midfielders and Luis Gil who we think the sky is the limit for,” Lagerwey said. “In my opinion, that’s as good a group of starting midfielders that you’re going to find.”
Lagerwey also really likes RSL’s midfield depth, talking on Saturday about how excited he is to see what 2012 reserves Sebastian Velasquez, Yordany Alvarez, Enzo Martinez, David Viana and offseason acquisition Cole Grossman bring to the table in 2013.
“Behind [our starters] it’s not just Sebastian Velasquez, but David Viana, Enzo Martinez,” he said. “We think that Yordany Alvarez, with another year in the system, will be able to play the side of the diamond. And I’ll tell you what, this kid Cole Grossman that we picked up… we’re pretty high on him, too.”
“If two of those guys succeed you’re pretty darn good, so we feel pretty good about our midfielders.”
Losing Will Johnson hurts
While he's excited about RSL's 2013 midfield, it was very clear on Saturday that Lagerwey had a hard time trading Will Johnson.
Johnson, who earns a hefty salary, had been with RSL since 2008, endearing himself to everyone around the team with his trademark hustle and no-nonsense attitude. Lagerwey got a little choked up when explaining the motivation behind sending the Canadian international to Portland.
“Will made a good salary, so we worked with him and said ‘Hey, is there any chance you take a pay cut,’” Lagerwey said. “I’ve never known a player in my life to take a pay cut, so his answer predictably was no. I said ‘We’re getting offers for you at such a level that we have to consider trading you, it’s the only common sense approach.’”
“He understood and asked where they were coming from and we gave him the teams. He said ‘Do you mind if I talk to them and try to work out where the best situation for me is?’ I said ‘Absolutely, if we work together and you tell me which team you really want to go to and that team matches the offers that we have out there then we’re happy to do that.’”
“But Will is a sad one for me,” Lagerwey continued. “He’s one of my favorite players we’ve ever had, but we just got offers that were high enough that we had to consider them. We worked together, it was he and I on the phone, him saying ‘Alright, I’ve talked to everybody I want to go to Portland’ and me telling Portland ‘Ok, if you match then it’s a done deal.’ And we did it. For Will, with a little baby, it was tough for him. It was tough to lose him, but we feel like we did the best we could.”
