Day Four has come and gone as Real Salt Lake storms through preseason in Casa Grande, Arizona. After two straight days of double days, Head Coach Jeff Cassar lightened the training load somewhat on Thursday, with a gym session in the morning and a field session in the evening.
It was the first full-team gym session under new Director of Physical Performance Henry Ruggiero and served to keep the team active while also taking some of the pounding off of their bodies as they work through the field sessions. In the evening session, the team worked into a series of small-field 11v11 games to work on playing in tight spaces.
One of the standouts thus far in camp has been the inclusion of 10 players from Real Monarchs in with the first team. Not only have the majority of the players fit in without degrading the level of play, but some have seemed to excel in the first six training sessions.
“They’re doing a great job. They really are. This group of players is very talented. They’re adapting to the speed pretty well. And I think that’s only going to help them when they return to their team,” RSL Head Coach Jeff Cassar said. “I think it’s great that we have the Monarchs staff with us to see how we’re doing it and then they will replicate what we do. And I could very easily see that some of these players might end up with the first team.”
The training sessions have served as a makeshift tryout for the Monarchs players, but also an opportunity to get comfortable with the MLS level of play in preseason, which Cassar and Monarchs Head Coach Mike Petke hope can translate over to training sessions when the Monarchs open camp in February. In addition to getting players experience, it is also a way to keep players integrated throughout the preseason while RSL’s U-20 National Team players move in and out of camp while balancing duties for club and country.
Working with longtime professionals provide the standard of play for the Monarchs players.
“Preseason is when you start to establish what kind of player you’re going to be and what kind of team you’re going to be,” Cassar said. “They are around very high-end players who show them what it means to be a pro. It’s great for all these young men to see Kyle Beckerman, Yura Movsisyan, Sunny, Luke Mulholland, Tony Beltran, Chris Wingert … when they can see how they prepare it can only help them out.”
RSL will have one more day with two training sessions on Friday, then will take part in an intrasquad scrimmage on Saturday before departing for Tucson later that day.
