DC United Opens Training Camp with a South American Flair

Mike Martin

January 28, 2008

DC United's newest DP - Marcelo Gallardo

DC United's newest DP - Marcelo Gallardo
Photo: Martin Fernandez

With its roster nearly full and nearly everyone in attendance, DC United opened practice for the 2008 season with a lively scrimmage, and the formal announcement of two more South Americans, Gonzalo Peralta and Jose Carvallo, both of whom participated in practice along with Marcelo Gallardo even though his signing won’t be announced until tomorrow.

Washington, D.C. With the Argentine playmaker in place if not announced yet, United has now added five South Americans in the past five days as well as turned over a fair amount of the entire roster with the expectation of making the team deeper and more successful both in MLS and internationally.

After a second season in a row where United won the MLS regular season trophy, but fizzled in the playoffs and in international competitions, Technical Director Dave Kasper outlined the team’s goals this offseason as getting better in the back and adding another player or two up top, and we think we have accomplished that with these new players”.

Coach Tommy Soehn’s thoughts on the newly acquired South Americans “We researched these players extensively both on the field and off it too. Our intention was to not only make the team better on the field, but in the locker room as well, and we are confident these players will do just that. They make us a deeper and more competitive team which we’ll need considering all the competitions we’ll be in this year”.

Kasper introduced each of the new players, except for Gallardo as he will save those comments for his formal press conference tomorrow at the National Press Club. In his introductions, he also commented on what each player is expected to bring to the team.

About Gonzalo Martinez, “He’s a player with lots of experience from playing the biggest tournaments in South America. He’s a versatile defender that we expect will primarily be used as a central defender”

Jose Carvallo is “a young goalkeeper from Peru who despite his age has lots of big time experience. A player who we expect will battle with Zach Wells”. Carvallo is 21 and got his first cap with the Peruvian National team last September after playing many years on all the youth national teams as well having played in both Copa Libertadores and Sudamericana at the club level. Kasper’s statements seemed to indicate that the goalkeeping slot might be up for grabs.

On Franco Niell, Kasper said he is a “scorer with goals against the biggest clubs in Argentina. He’s a hungry young player who’s excited for a change and a chance to do well at DC United”.

Finally, Gonzalo Peralta is a “big solid central defender who is a great organizer, leader, very vocal player who’s also comfortable on the ball”. “He will add both stability and experience” who “will be an important organizer in our backline”.

Today’s scrimmage certainly showed clearly that the team did their homework as all the South Americans were impressive for the most part. Obviously, it’s only the first day and there’s along way to go, but for a first impression, United got some very talented players who look like they will fit in pretty quickly.

In my opinion, Peralta had the best first day as he stepped right in the center and immediately took charge organizing and talking almost non-stop in English and in Spanish moving players around helping players make decisions. Just looked supremely confident and in control of the situation as well as being rock solid defensively. Also, after the press conference he couldn’t say enough how happy he was to be here and eager to do well in MLS.

Niell also looked viciously good. He is non-stop pressuring and moving, but always looking for ways to go direct to goal. He will definitely put MLS defenders on their heels and despite his relatively small size he is pretty thick and wasn’t moved off the ball very easily.

Tough to judge Carvallo as he had to play in the field with their being no keepers used in this scrimmage, but he is decent on the ball and didn’t look out of place despite not being field player normally. Looks like a very confident and athletic fellow and the vibe I got was that he might make it very hard to pencil Wells into the starting lineup every week. I believe Wells will have the edge due to his age and MLS experience, but the highlight reel of Carvallo showed some impressive saves and he’s obviously good with his feet as well.

Martinez had a bit of a rough first day. He played on the right of a three man backline with Peralta inside of him, but to me he looked a bit timid and his touch was dicey. Also, most of the time he simply humped the ball up the field rather than pass out of the back. However, he’s obviously athletic and maybe just tried to be a bit cautious on a day where a lot of young players were buzzing about hoping to make the team, or maybe it was just an off day.

As for Gallardo, he is absolutely the real deal. His touch on the ball is lovely and his field awareness is amazing. What you’d expect from a world class midfielder of course, but nice to see all the same. He didn’t look out of shape at all, even though he tended to glide around and not really go full speed. He moved the ball around effortlessly and seemed to fit in well with the team. He also is a bit feisty too as he made had no qualms challenging for the ball.

All the team representatives present including Ben Olsen all said they felt the new players should be integrated in pretty quickly. The new players are all open and friendly, they work hard and are clearly talented and expect to succeed. They were brought in specifically to fill certain roles that they have the clear ability to be able to do. Olsen put it the best when he said soccer has its own language and there’s no reason to think the team won’t sort things out pretty quickly.

Neither Emilio nor Fred were in attendance as they were having minor visa issues in coming back to America from Brazil. However, the team fully expects them to join the team in Bradenton in a few days. Zach Wells was also away with the US National team and the team’s top draft pick, Andrew Jacobson, was also absent. Some non-roster invitees were Justin Moose, Jamil Walker, Pat Carroll (Brian and Jeff’s youngest brother), and former Galaxy player Josh Gardner.

Visitor Comments

On January 29, 2008 - 08:58:14 AM Martin said:
Thanks Mike - It's funny how we saw two different Gallardo's out there; granted I was looking through my lens most of the time;

While he did have some nice touches I thought he was mostly out of step - he seemed "groggy". Moreno looked like he hadn't missed a beat form last year - actually he looked a bit better.

Anyway - I conccurr with the rest of your assesment - I was very impressed with Peralta as well and can;t wait to actually see Carvallo on gaol.
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