Kyle Beckerman has been all around the country in the last month while playing in the U.S. National Team for the 2015 CONCACAF Gold Cup. Now, he will see more of North America as Real Salt Lake embarks on a journey that will see the team play five matches in five different cities across three different competitions and in three countries in just 15 days.
“The tour continues, I guess,” the Real Salt Lake captain laughed after his first training session back with the club on Tuesday.
Beckerman may have logged several thousand airmiles and a few hundred minutes on the field while with the U.S. National Team, but he came back to his club with a rejuvenated approach, ready to take on the final 12 matches of the regular season, along with four matches in CONCACAF Champions League, one or two matches in the U.S. Open Cup and the possible playoff matches that will be added at the end of the season.
“It was a lot of travel – so much travel in a short period of time. I’m really happy to be back and excited to get after the second half of the season,” Beckerman said. “It’s a really exciting part of the season. We have everything to play for in front of us. A lot of important games and games that have a lot riding on them. It’s a good time to be a player on this team.”
Beckerman rejoins a team that has found a groove lately, winning three consecutive matches across all competitions for the first time this season with an Open Cup win over the LA Galaxy and two regular season wins over the Houston Dynamo and Sporting Kansas City to vault into seventh in the Western Conference and back within striking distance of the top six playoff spots.
RSL Head Coach sees Beckerman’s return as an opportunity to enhance what the team has been doing on both sides of the ball in the coming weeks.
“Obviously he’s our leader. He sees the game fantastic and reads the game amazing. So it just makes us stronger and deeper going forward,” Cassar said.
While Beckerman comes back to a team transitioning into a solid run of form with a lot on the line, he leaves behind a U.S. squad that struggled to a fourth-place finish in the Gold Cup. After going 2-0-1 in the Group Stage and winning handily, 6-0 over Cuba, in the quarterfinals, a shock defeat in the semifinals to Jamaica left the U.S. in the consolation match and looked listless in a shootout defeat.
That feeling lingers, but Beckerman leaves the national team with a bright personal outlook.
“Anytime you go into a tournament, especially the Gold Cup, the main objective is to get first. We’re all disappointed to not be able to win, but we had a lot of positives. We gave everything we had and just came up short in that semifinal game,” he said. “It was there for us to win, it just wasn’t to be on that day. We just have to learn from it and move forward.”
The U.S. will meet tournament champions Mexico in a playoff in October for the CONCACAF berth in the 2017 Confederations Cup.
