A Country’s Challenge

One needs to shout more, the other needs more bite.

On Tuesday night, when the United States plays Mexico, Chad Marshall, the former Stanford defender from Riverside, will have to yell louder than he ever has if he is to be heard over the screams of an expected 60,000 Mexican fans at Estadio Jalisco.

Alongside Marshall will be Chris Wingert, college soccer’s player of the year in 2003. He not only will have to bite, but also claw, scratch, shove and do just about anything else it takes to help the U.S. defeat Mexico and qualify for the 2004 Athens Olympics.

It will be the game of a lifetime for the two youngsters.

Already, it has been a year to remember.

They were roommates when the U.S. under-23 national team was training last month at the Home Depot Center for the CONCACAF Olympic qualifying tournament that has reached its all-important semifinal stage.

While in Carson, the two also were awaiting the 2004 Major League Soccer draft. On Jan. 16, their future came into focus.

Marshall, 19, was the second player selected, right behind Freddy Adu.

Wingert, 21, was the 12th player chosen.

Both were drafted by Columbus, where they will soon be battling the likes of former Galaxy and U.S. national team player Robin Fraser and two-time World Cup player Frankie Hejduk for playing time with the Crew.

First comes Tuesday’s battle.

If the U.S. wins, it will qualify for Athens. If it loses, it will miss the Olympics for the first time since 1980, when the Americans qualified for but boycotted the Moscow Games.

Which is why U.S. Coach Glenn “Mooch” Myernick has been trying to impress on Marshall the need to lead from the back.

At 6 feet 4 and 190 pounds, the central defender has tremendous potential. His play was one of the reasons why the U.S. reached the quarterfinals of the FIFA World Youth Championship at the United Arab Emirates in December.

But he is not loud enough.

“Chad did quite well with the under-20s [in the UAE],” Myernick said. “He has a presence back there; he’s certainly good in the air; he’s composed on the ball.

“He’s by nature a little bit too quiet of a player for me, in terms of taking some leadership back there and organizing. I think part of playing in the back is taking advantage of the fact that you can see more of the field than the guys in front of you, and you need to help them with a little bit more direction.

“I have no problem with Chad being a quiet guy off the field, but being able to organize on the field, to me that’s just part and parcel of what that position requires, like heading, tracking and passing.

“Talking is part of it. He needs to take a look at himself in terms of that component as he tries to play at the upper levels of the game.”

While Marshall was in the UAE, Wingert was helping St. John’s reach the 2003 NCAA final, where it lost, 2-1, to Indiana -- oddly enough, at Crew Stadium, his future home in Columbus.

He also was busy graduating early and winning both the Hermann Trophy as the top player in collegiate soccer, as well as the National Soccer Coaches Assn. of America scholar-athlete award.

He is the first to win both the Hermann and the NSCAA honor in the same season and is the only player on the U.S. team without a professional game under his belt.

Wingert, who is from Babylon, N.Y., made the U.S. team because of his versatility. He can play any of the four positions along the back line and has been used as a left back and right back during Olympic qualifying.

“He has no glaring deficiencies and no particular outstanding single quality in terms of a physical characteristic or anything like that,” Myernick said in Carson. “But in all components of the game he’s alert, he’s sharp, he makes good decisions. He has a nice way of getting the ball to the right guys on the field at the right time. He knows his role and is a very good competitor.”

On Sunday, Myernick amplified those remarks.

“He’s capable of playing better than he has [in Guadalajara], particularly in just the simple things,” he said. “He’s giving the ball away a little bit more than I care to see out of a back player, and I would like to see him have a little bit more bite in his game defensively.”

So, the one needs to shout more, the other needs more bite.

Tuesday night will tell if they can.