A TEAM DIVIDED : Sockers Say They Lack Unity

At Thursday’s practice, Socker captain Jean Willrich talked about total commitment and team unity.

It hasn’t happened that way, Jean.

The Sockers did not become five-time indoor champions by supporting each other or even agreeing on the way the game should be played. Now that the Sockers are one loss away from elimination, they are not about to become peacemakers.

The Sockers trail the Kansas City Comets two games to one in the best-of-five opening-round Major Indoor Soccer League playoff series and are coming off a home loss in which they blew a three-goal third-quarter lead. Kansas City scored six goals in an 11-minute span and won, 9-7.

A season and an era could end for the Sockers Sunday night at the San Diego Sports Arena.

“We’re all in the same boat,” Willrich said. “We have to go at them. You can’t fool around anymore. This is now survival. Maybe we needed to get more pressure . . . All the talking is bull. We have to have a total commitment and go out and do it.”

That’s easier said than done, his teammates indicated.

--”We’ve played 55 games and we still haven’t gotten anything sorted out,” said Socker midfielder Brian Quinn. “We don’t seem to be on the same wavelength.”

--”The main reason for us losing is that a lot of different players have different thoughts as to how we should play the game,” said defender Fernando Clavijo. “That shouldn’t be an issue at this point.”

--”It’s a team sport, but we have 10 individuals,” said defender Kevin Crow. “Everything we do is individual now. We don’t have the right blend of players on this team anymore.”

--”Some players have to have specific jobs because they cannot handle a free role,” said Socker midfielder Branko Segota.

--And Socker Coach Ron Newman summed up the situation: “We have too many coaches. They’ve talked themselves into these other ways of playing. It ain’t the way it’s going to be.”

The debate over whether the Sockers should play a disciplined offensive game or go with a more free-wheeling attack has been going on for seasons. But a heated halftime discussion Tuesday night and the Sockers’ ensuing loss to the Comets has brought the debate into the forefront again.

With all their offensive players healthy for the first time in 2 1/2 months, the Sockers dominated the Comets in the early going and scored four goals in a first quarter for the first time this season. The Sockers led by 5-2 at halftime.

Then came the debate.

Some players, most notably Kevin Crow, felt the Sockers should control the ball, force the Comets to come to them and not continue to attack as often in the second half.

“You can’t count on this team (Sockers) outscoring anyone anymore,” said Crow, who pointed out that the Sockers finished seventh among the 11 MISL teams in scoring this season. “We played like dogs for seven minutes (in the first half), but we can’t keep it up. Physically and mentally, you can’t keep that pace.”

Crow adds that he doesn’t want the Sockers to stop going forward. But he feels that when the Sockers are ahead and the opposing team drops most of their players behind the ball as soon as the Sockers take possession, San Diego should control the ball rather than hitting long balls into the corners.

“Kevin’s philosophy makes sense,” said Quinn, “but my argument is we don’t have players to do it. We’re never able to control the game or dictate it.”

“We don’t have the disciplined players who can play a boop-boop-boop passing game,” Willrich said. “And you can’t have the guys up front keep making runs and not get the ball.”

The theory is that eventually, the players up front will become tired and discouraged and will stop making the runs.

Quinn, Crow, Willrich and Juli Veee have been known as “The Clan” for sticking together and reinforcing each other’s ideas. However, on this point, Willrich and Quinn feel they have been hitting their heads against the wall.

The first four Socker championship teams would try to frustrate an opponent into making a mistake or losing heart and thereby methodically turn a 5-2 lead into 6-2 and 7-2. Now, Quinn feels the Sockers have to try and outscore a team and win by 12-9 or 13-10.

So Tuesday’s halftime discussion escalated into a heated argument.

“We were arguing, and to tell you the truth, I still don’t know what we were arguing about,” Clavijo said.

Said Newman: “We went off on a tangent and we didn’t need that. The tempo we were playing was suiting us. I wanted to keep it up.”

“When something is successful,” said Clavijo, “keep doing it. Play aggressively the whole game.”

But the Sockers started playing more cautiously midway through the third quarter. The Comets scored to make it 5-3. Paul Dougherty scored to make it 6-3, but then the Comets scored two goals in the final three minutes of the third quarter to cut the margin to one.

By the time the final quarter began, the Comets had the momentum and they were dictating the tempo of the game.

“They were motivated and we were losing confidence,” Newman said.

During the second half, the Sockers said there was a lot of yelling and bickering on the bench. Even more than usual.

“We stopped doing what we were doing in the first half,” said Segota, who scored two first-half goals in his first appearance after missing nine straight games with a fractured cheekbone. “We started playing boop-boop-boop too early. We went out and played too easy, too slow. You can’t do that. There was too much time.”

There was much too much time against a team like the Comets. Kansas City led the MISL in goals scored, had the best power-play unit and was the only team with two 50-goal scorers (Jan Goossens and Dale Mitchell). Newman called the Comets’ feat of scoring seven goals on nine shots in the second half, “a supernatural bloody happening.”

As is their customary response, the Sockers blamed themselves--rather than crediting Kansas City--for the Comets’ offensive explosion.

“We can’t let people have open shots,” Willrich said. “They’ll go in.”

And in, and in, and in.

“We’re allowing them to score goals,” Clavijo said. “They did a lot of good things, but we allowed them to do them. It’s mental mistakes. We don’t really know what we’re doing.”

And it’s on that note that the Sockers will head into their most important game of the season Sunday.

Socker Notes

Jean Willrich suffered a right ankle contusion when he was hit by Comet defender Cacho in Tuesday’s game. Willrich did not practice Thursday. Socker trainer Bill Taylor said Willrich is questionable for Sunday’s game. “If Cheezy can walk, Cheezy can play,” Taylor said. Defender Brian Schmetzer, out with a pulled right hamstring since April 10, practiced Thursday. Taylor said he won’t know until game day if Schmetzer can play Sunday.