“We want to be competing for everything.”
That was the message from Real Salt Lake captain Kyle Beckerman in a lengthy Q&A with the Salt Lake Tribune’s Chris Kamrani that ran online Tuesday and in print in Wednesday’s edition. The veteran midfielder went into great detail about why he stayed in Utah rather than accept an invitation to the U.S. National Team’s January camp and Jurgen Klinsmann’s reaction to his request to stay with his club. He talked about the whirlwind year he had in 2014 and the difficulty in losing important components to the team after so many years together.
“In years to come, I'll even look back on it more as a lot of good memories. These guys are my friends for life and I'm going to keep in touch with them. A lot of them are in really good situations for themselves and I'm really excited for them — I just want to be really excited for them on our team,” Beckerman told Chris Kamrani. “For the most part, it's a lot of positives. I'll look back in years to come, and I'm sure there will be more positives than negatives to remember.”
Despite those losses – namely Ned Grabavoy, Chris Wingert and Nat Borchers – Beckerman still believes in his team, knowing that RSL has the ability to extend its streak of playoff appearances in 2015 if the team reaches its potential. That is one reason he felt it was important to be with his club from the start of training camp.
“Our fan base, they expect us to be competing for things,” Beckerman said. “There were these changes, but I'm here and I expect the same things as the fans do: We want to be competing for everything.”
Read the full interview here.
