Real Salt Lake has reached the statistical halfway point in the season, so we sat down and talked with General Manager Craig Waibel about his thoughts on the first half of the year and offer his hopes and expectations for the second half. In this two-part series, he starts by talking about the challenges and successes of the first 17 games that see RSL just three points out of playoff position at 5-10-2, amidst a slew of injuries, international call-ups and a coaching change.
Q: Looking at the first half of the year, what is your biggest takeaway from the first 17 games?
Waibel: We’re better when we’re healthy. That’s one thing. We’ve seen some guys do quite well. We’ve had a number of situations and scenarios in terms of injuries and a coaching change. There are a lot of things that we are in control of and a few that we aren’t that have had an impact on the consistency of performance. Overall, the first 17 games have really helped us identify more weaknesses than strengths.
Q: Of those strengths, bringing in Albert Rusnák has brought more results, maybe, than expected because of the time most players take to adapt.
Waibel: We’ve certainly seen Albert come in and transition very quickly. Savarino has done the same. Plata has been a little up and down, but we are starting to see far more consistency. That comes when the rest of the roster has far more consistency as well. The new faces have done quite well and they are showing that the homework that we’re doing from a front office side is thorough. But they are also showing that the coaching staff and the players themselves have what it takes to succeed. It doesn’t take a lot of effort to sign players. It takes a lot of effort to sign the right players. I think we have some good examples of that. From character and performance, but mostly just their professionalism.
Q: With the U-20s being gone for as long as they were, what kinds of things were they able to pick up in that process that they can bring back to Real Salt Lake?
Waibel: International experience is interesting. Anytime you do it, there is an amount of pressure that you don’t typically feel in your domestic league unless you get deep into the playoffs. Anytime you go to an international competition it’s a tournament so every game matters. There is that pressure and so you bring that experience and performance and understanding of nerves. Each of these guys have gone and faced that in that next step of the World Cup and done quite well and bring that home with them. All of them come back a little more prepared to add to our quality on a weekly basis than they were.
Q: The weaknesses you mentioned – were those things you thought of as weaknesses going in or were those things you learned were weaknesses as the process went on?
Waibel: Some are learned. But you always go in knowing what your strengths are and knowing what some of your weaknesses are. Then you learn that some of your strengths aren’t actually there. And some of your weaknesses weren’t identified. It’s ongoing because the performance of athletes can fluctuate. Did we know some of the weaknesses were there? Yeah. It’s just like any other MLS team, one of the weaknesses is depth of the rosters. For example, our second round draft pick (Justin Schmidt), who in our perfect world would play 25 USL games and prepare for next year. He’s already played 11 MLS games and I believe only one USL game. Those types of situations, you can only learn when they come up. We’ve identified some things we weren’t able to identify in January because new challenges have presented themselves and we move on from there. It’s evolution and it’s one of the cool things about sports is the guarantee that it’s never going to be the same when you wake up tomorrow.
Check back Thursday for Part 2 of the conversation when Waibel looks ahead to the second half of the season.
