Almost a full three months after the league suspended the 2020 regular season, Major League Soccer announced its return-to-play plan – the MLS is Back Tournament – which will begin July 8 in Orlando.
For players who’ve spent the last few months adjusting to quarantining and individual workouts and then transitioning to small group sessions, the tournament presents a welcoming change: they will play again, be able to have a full training session and a return to a form of normalcy.
Of course, that means they’re also going to be away from Cincinnati, and their families and friends, during the lead-up to the tournament and the competition itself. It’s a similar situation they face prior to the start of every season, with extended preseason training tips utilized by most league teams.
“All of us are very excited for us to be able to be on a field again and not being in individual trainings or not being in groups of five or six, but to actually have some contact and some competitiveness within being on the field again,” Greg Garza said Wednesday during a conference call. “I think that Orlando definitely provides that.
“It’s obviously a huge sacrifice for us to make to be away from our families and our loved ones for such a long time, but at the same time, we get to go down there and do what we love the most.”
Fatai Alashe, who said he’s excited to play, joked this is basically a “third preseason” in six months for the club.
“It’s definitely different,” Alashe said. “It’s something where we’re all just going to have to buy into it and just do the best that we can to put the best product onto the field.”
FC Cincinnati will enter the MLS is Back Tournament with completely different circumstance from every team.
Of course, everyone will have to adjust to playing in Orlando, but FCC will also have to adjust to their new head coach, Jaap Stam, who hasn’t physically met his players yet and is still in the Netherlands.
While there’s a focus on winning the tournament – a trophy, a $1.1 million in total prize pool available and a 2021 Concacaf Champions League berth – there’s also a focus on players building relationships they started forming before this pandemic took those away.
“It’s a difficult task at hand,” Garza said. “We have a new manager that we haven’t even met yet and we’re only going to have maybe a week or two to train under his belt … I think the most positive note for us going down to Orlando is to start building that chemistry to start building those relationships.”
Days before the 2020 regular season initially began, Yoann Damet told the media that coaches can use preseason as a time to implement a lot of ideologies and tactics. That’s logical ahead of any season, but the comment spoke more to how players are all together for weeks at a time, and it’s a chance to bond and spend most of their day discussing and playing soccer.
That’s basically happening all over again, a few months later, but with Stam leading the group.
FCC will go to Orlando with the goal of winning the MLS is Back Tournament, but they can also use this time in Florida to strengthen relationships and better understand the playing strategy their new coach wants to deploy.
“This team now receiving a new head coach, we still have new players that we’re still trying to figure out their own identity within the team and trying to create those opportunities off the field,” Garza said. “Sometimes that takes months at a time, and have been erased three months with everything that’s happened. We have to gradually build those relationships once again. I think Orlando is a perfect opportunity for us to do that.”
Spencer Richey reinforced the idea of relationship building and said there’s a possibility this trip can start a wave of momentum that can push into in-market games and the resumption of a normal regular-schedule schedule after the tournament ends.
“If we go down there and we do well and advance far in the playoffs, I think that there’s certainly real confidence and real momentum that you can take from that tournament and apply it to the season once it kicks off in the fall,” Richey said.
On MLS resuming play before other leagues
MLS Commissioner Don Garber said his intention was to start the season sooner than July 8 and pushed for a return in late June, similar to the NWSL, which begins June 27. The goal was for MLS to be the first American sports league to resume their regular season. The NWSL would not have started yet, while the NBA and NHL will start after July 8.
Richey said the league made that idea clear from the beginning of negotiating this tournament and during collective bargaining negotiations.
“They were straight up,” Richey said of MLS. “They said, ‘Disney and us as MLS, they see this opportunity’ … Hopefully we’ll be able to take advantage of this opportunity and gain back our viewership and potentially gain some new fans in the process.”
