In the multi-faceted scope of judging the USL’s relationship with Major League Soccer clubs, Real Monarchs was highly successful in 2016, providing a proving ground for defender Chris Schuler and forward Ricardo Velazco to earn spots with Real Salt Lake. However, the club fell short of its playoff aspirations, giving RSL General Manager Craig Waibel several areas to focus on in improving the relationship in 2017.
“The positives have to be remembered from this year. We are much closer and next year we should be to the point that we feel like we have the players to compete and entertain,” Waibel said Monday. “It was a small step but it was a step forward. We still have some things to correct and improve upon, but we were fighting for something on the last day of the season. Us not getting in to the playoffs didn’t come down to us not getting help from other teams, but we didn’t do the job well enough.”
Many lessons were learned by the Real Salt Lake technical staff in the second year of the club’s second team with Real Monarchs in the USL. That education continues the philosophical development of how to use the club best to maximize growth potential of young players in a winning culture.
2016 saw major improvements over the club’s inaugural season in 2015, when a youthful lineup built under the idealist impression that a team almost exclusively made up of young developing players would be able to compete for the league title. While there was plenty of talent on the field, the mixture wasn’t right and it resulted in a 7-13-8 record that placed 12th out of 12 teams in the USL’s Western Conference.
This season, with more veteran players mixed in to a slew of young players and others on loan from RSL, the record jumped to 10-14-6 and the Monarchs were in contention for the playoffs up until the final match before ultimately finishing 11th in the 15-team Western Conference.
“This seasons taught us some lessons and we took some chances while we tried to figure out what type of player we can develop,” Waibel said. “We didn’t get that part wrong, but we need to sign players with more experience for next year to help that process.”
Velazco led the team with eight goals and six assists, improving greatly on his total from the previous year, earning the 23-year-old product of the Real Salt Lake-Arizona Academy a spot with Real Salt Lake late in the season. Schuler, meanwhile, battled back from injuries that limited him to just five MLS appearances in 2015 to show that he was a first-team quality center back that was able to stay healthy and contribute.
The Monarchs also saw several players come on loan from Real Salt Lake regularly. Included among them was goalkeeper Lalo Fernandez, midfielder Danilo Acosta and defenders Phanuel Kavita and Boyd Okwuonu. Fernandez served as starting goalkeeper for the second straight season, finishing with an 8-11-5 record with a 1.21 goals against average in his 24 appearances. Kavita and Okwuonu had 20 and 15 appearances, respectively, in their second pro seasons. Meanwhile, the 18-year-old rookie Acosta played in 18 matches, adding to his experiences playing with U.S. Youth National Teams and with the RSL-AZ U-18s during the postseason.
In addition, RSL draft picks Max Lachowecki and Amass Amankona saw 26 matches apiece in their first professional seasons. Maikon Orellana paced the team through some early success and finished the year with five goals, while first-year winger Andrew Brody had two goals and one assist and Elder Torres was a frequent contributor out of the midfield in between stints with the Honduras Olympic team.
Things looked promising when the Monarchs opened the season unbeaten through the first three matches at 2-0-1. However, a winless run of five matches and a long stretch away from the team’s home field at Rio Tinto Stadium conspired to keep the team from consistently finding itself on the winning side of the ledger. In all, the Monarchs went 4-3-4 at Rio Tinto Stadium and 1-3-0 during their “On Tour” matches at the University of Utah’s Ute Soccer Field, Utah Valley University’s Clyde Field and Greater Nevada Field in Reno.
A three-game winning streak in August propelled the team back into the playoff hunt, but the Monarchs went just 1-3-1 in the final five matches and missed the postseason by a matter of four points.
With so many young players in the mix, Waibel will look to pepper in more experienced pros to the 2017 roster. That has already started, to a degree, with the additions of midfielders Jesus Leal and Charlie Adams and forward Amet Ramirez late in the 2016 season, but will continue through the off-season as the Monarchs continue to vie for the club’s first postseason appearance.
“We didn’t build the team the right way to win,” Waibel said. “We wanted to develop too many players and it is a developmental team, but you need more players with more experience to help put those young players in positions to get better development in meaningful games.”
