Real Salt Lake kicks off the statistical second half of the season on Saturday when it faces the San Jose Earthquakes at Avaya Stadium. To look ahead to the second half of the year, we checked in with General Manager Craig Waibel. In the second part of a two-part series that started on Wednesday, he opened up about the direction of the team.
Q: Already you see so many players coming back from injury and international duty and you never know when the injury part is going to pop up again. Because of the quick adjustments of the new players and the return to form of a guy like Justen Glad and the difference in this team when you have even close to a full roster … does that breed optimism for where this team can go short-term and long-term?
Waibel: Hopefully every transfer window can breed optimism. We’ll be adding at least one player. Possibly more. The optimism is multi-layered. Getting healthy is one thing. All of the experience these young men are getting. Albert’s experience in the Euros. All of these things add up to a group that is much more mature than it was six months ago. You look at the amount of games these guys have played – big games. That adds to the optimism. Then the balance of the roster. All of these things come into play. There’s absolutely no reason to be pessimistic. The truth is, if we haven’t already played through the hardest part of our season, we should all get helmets molded onto our heads. We know it’s going to get better. We know we’re going to get healthier and fitter. And we’re finally in a place where we’re looking forward across the horizon and we can see the sun come up instead of go down.
Q: What stands out to you about Mike Petke’s coaching style and playing style?
Waibel: Transition is tough for coaches. Especially without preseason or an offseason to prepare a team. I think Mike is slowly implementing a much more disciplined mentality. I think the way he wants to play is a little higher up the field and in a tighter group. I think that’s how the game is going now and it requires a lot of honest work from the players. It takes a long time to train, especially when you’re balancing preparing for games and trying to train mentality. We’ve seen a good progression and now with a few players getting healthy and a few changes to the roster, he will be able to implement the next evolution in where he wants to take this team.
Q: You could conceivably start a team with five guys who are 22 years old and younger. How does that impact how you view progress over the second half of the season?
Waibel: The players will define progress at this point. That’s no longer up to us. What’s up to my staff is to create a roster that gives the coaches players that are good enough to compete and good enough to win. And then the players take it from there. And the coaches take it from there. And the progression of this team is only going to get better under Mike and the staff that he selects. The players have to define it as well. You can sign the most talented guy in the world, but if he loses focus, he’s not going to be that effective. I believe that the current roster is talented. We are going to make it better in the window. Then I think we have to look to the players and the coaches to uphold the standard that they’re all capable of.
Q: We’ve seen how this team can perform at its best and at its worst. What’s the trajectory of this group?
Waibel: The depth of the roster is deep enough, when healthy, to provide very tough and consistently difficult decisions to be made every week by the coaching staff about who gets to start and who gets to be subbed in. As we get healthy it’s going to demand a better performance on a daily basis by the players themselves. It’s also going to hopefully command a clean decision-making process by the staff. The trajectory of this roster is certainly capable of righting the ship and 100% capable of making the playoffs. From there, we see it all the time in MLS. It’s not gambling. It’s not a crapshoot. But it’s certainly who is performing the best at that time of the year? This roster, as it gels over the next couple of months healthy – knock on wood – is certainly capable of scaring any team in this league.
