The 2015 season had been over for less than 24 hours and already Real Salt Lake Head Coach Jeff Cassar has his eyes looking toward the 2016 season and the CONCACAF Champions League quarterfinals in February.
In his weekly appearance on The Bill & OC Show on ESPN 700 on Monday, Cassar addressed a wide range of topics, from top players on the team this season to off-season plans and where RSL stands to improve entering a series with Tigres of Mexico in the Champions League Knockout Round that is less than four months away.
Soon, players and coaches will meet to talk about the season gone by and how things need to be different to continue on the successes of a run through the Champions League Group Stage and to the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup semifinals while improving greatly on the 11-15-8 record that saw RSL miss the playoffs for the first time since 2007.
“It’s just an opportunity to discuss the season a little bit – discuss some of the negatives and positives. But also it’s now moving forward,” Cassar said on the show. “The season’s over and it’s now what we’re doing in the offseason to prepare for our Champions League and our regular season next year. We’ll talk about what areas they can improve upon for next year.”
Cassar also plans some self-evaluation. Upon finishing his second season as an MLS head coach, Cassar and his coaching staff went through some ups and downs and saw some growing pains after a highly successful opening campaign in 2014 when RSL opened the season with 12 straight unbeaten matches before losing Nick Rimando, Kyle Beckerman and Alvaro Saborio to World Cup duties.
With a slew of injuries, suspensions and international call-ups providing weekly challenges for the coaches and the team to overcome, RSL was able to get valuable playing time for some young players. That sometimes came at the expense of results, but Cassar views them as learning experiences for everyone involved.
“I am in my second year of coaching. I think this year has thrown everything at me, my staff and the team possible,” he said. “I think we dealt with some things the right way and some things the wrong way. It’s for sure going to make us better for having to go through those experiences. I firmly believe that.”
While he intends to map out plans for players to improve individual portions of their game, Cassar also plans to go abroad and watch how other clubs prepare – whether in training sessions, games or in recovery. Immersing himself in those environments even for short periods, he says, will help him improve as a coach as he sees different ways of confronting the week-to-week and day-to-day grinds of a season.
On the field, he knows the team that takes the pitch against Tigres in February stands to look different than the one that closed the season with a 3-1 loss to the Sounders on Sunday in Seattle. But that evolution of the lineup can reestablish RSL as a force in the Western Conference yet again.
“You have to look at every position to get better and to improve – whether that’s in the starting group or the reserve group or getting players for the Monarchs. It’s constantly trying to get talent until you get the core players that are going to stay here for a long, long time with the club,” Cassar said. “That’s where you get the consistency that RSL has had over the years.”
To hear the full interview, click here.
