Castro Certain He Can Be the Next Segota : MSL finals: Forward, who has designs on becoming a dominant scorer, had clutch goals Friday to give Sockers a 2-1 series lead over Cleveland.
If not to opposing defenses, Socker forward Rod Castro at least presents a problem to alliteration.
Is it confident Rod Castro or cocky Rod Castro?
Does he have reason to be either?
After all, no one has ever compared the second-year Major Soccer League player to Branko Segota, arguably among the five best ever to play indoor soccer.
No one, that is, except Castro.
“I might not be a Branko Segota,” Castro said. “Not yet. But I think I can and will be. I feel confident about that. I know that at any moment in time I can take people on and score goals.”
He scored two, including the tying goal, in the Sockers’ 6-5 victory Friday over the Cleveland Crunch in Game 3 of the MSL championship series.
The Sockers, who lead the series, 2-1, face the Crunch in Game 4 at 3:35 p.m. today at the Coliseum in Richfield, Ohio.
Is there a comparison between Castro and Segota?
Consider Segota scored 35 goals in 21 games in his first year in the MSL (1978-79). The next year Segota scored 55 goals in 31 games. Segota peaked in 1984-85 when he scored 66 goals in 46 games with the Sockers.
And Castro?
In 1989-90, he was the National Professional Soccer League’s second leading scorer with 55 goals and 19 assists in 39 games. He impressed some people, but only people from the NPSL.
Stick around, kid, NPSL coaches told Castro, and we’ll make you the next Tatu.
No thanks, Castro replied.
He realized that he already was the NPSL’s Tatu. But that was like being the Donald Trump of Gila Bend.
“The level of competition is between double-A and triple-A baseball,” Castro said. “The best players in the NPSL could go over to the MSL and do OK.”
Castro decided to do just that.
Last year, his first in the MSL, he scored 22 goals and assisted on nine others in 51 games.
Those are good numbers for a first-year forward, OK numbers for a veteran and downright shabby for the next Tatu.
“I knew I would be able to come in and contribute,” Castro said. “But I never thought I would turn everybody’s heads around and become some kind of scoring wizard. One reason I did well was because no one knew who I was.”
“It helps when no one knows you, no one expects anything of you and you get a chance to play.”
That didn’t happen this season--not at first, anyway.
Castro started slowly, scoring only eight goals in the first 24 games before getting benched for six games.
“One thing about last year,” Castro explained, “was that I got tagged as a streaky-type player. So all of a sudden this season started and the same thing happens. It was like what people were saying was affecting the way I play. I started to think, ‘Well, maybe I am a streaky player.’ So if I slipped and had one bad game, I worried that I would go on a streak and have three or four bad games.”
Then, for the first time since he started playing the game, Castro was put on the sideline.
“You feel like you’re not a part of the team,” he said of his benching.
“Even though people come up to you and try to make you feel like you’re a part, deep down, you know you’re not. You sit in the stands and see your teammates running around, passing, scoring goals and say to yourself, ‘Gee, I should be a part of this.’ ”
But Castro understands why he was not.
“If you don’t produce, then your team doesn’t win games. And if a coach doesn’t win, he gets fired.”
Yet Castro begrudges the move.
“You begin to second-guess every move you make on the field. You think, ‘If I screw up now, is (Coach) Ron Newman going to pull me out?’ So you stop taking chances, which gets you nowhere because a forward has to take chances or else nothing is going to happen.”
But Castro also realized an irony in what he was saying. While the time off made him less of a player, it also made him more of a player.
“It was a learning experience,” he said. “When I was 14 (and playing with a club team in Culver City), I got injured and had to sit out a month. While I was sitting on the sidelines, I watched my team play and I learned more in those four weeks than I had previously to that time. Before that I was a good player, I had good dribbling skills and a good shot, but I never made great passes or read the game real well.
“So I kind of compare this season to that. Even though I still wanted to be in there, I learned a lot of what was going on.”
When Newman put Castro back on the field, he came through with 14 goals in his final 22 games.
Castro had three goals and three assists in seven playoff games before Friday. Then he helped turn around Game 3 by scoring twice in a span of 38 seconds--and turned some heads while doing so.
He also turned on Crunch defender Bernie James on the first one, a move reminiscent not of Segota, but rather of Juli Veee.
Castro’s second goal could be called Segota-like. It came on a free kick from the top of the arc.
A good strong shot can sometimes make it by a surprised goalie, but first the shooter has to be accurate enough to weave the ball to the side or above the defensive wall.
Castro showed he was capable of aiming such a shot.
“My next step,” Castro said, “is to continue as a consistent player, but score more points; maybe four points a game, something like that.”
Socker Notes
The Crunch has not lost back-to-back games at home since Dec. 28 and 30 when their record hit bottom at 7-15. . . . The Dec. 30 loss was the last game in a streak of 12 started by backup goalie Otto Orf, who could be in the nets tonight if starter P.J. Johns is still hobbled by a thigh bruise suffered late in Friday’s Game 3. Johns’ status is listed as questionable. . . . Forwards Hector Marinaro and Zoran Karic of the Crunch have combined for 15 points in the championship series. The rest of the team has supplied 10. . . . Sockers’ injury update: Both forward Branko Segota (hamstring strain) and midfielder Waad Hirmez (rib cage muscle strain) are listed as questionable. Ben Collins (ankle sprain) and Paul Wright (ankle sprain) should play, but Coach Ron Newman said Collins’ injury gives reason for concern.