With the 2011 MLS SuperDraft less than one week away, all eyes are on the combine. The combine is the last chance for coaches of the 18 league clubs to assess some of the young talent from America and further afield, as unattached players join those fresh out of the college system and stake their claim for involvement in the forthcoming season.
The SuperDraft has been known to provide a number of players more than capable of holding down a first-team place in their debut season, as last year’s picks Danny Mwanga, Teal Bunbury and Tim Ream demonstrated.
Even those snapped up in the third and fourth rounds cannot be ruled out when it comes to making an immediate impact: FC Dallas midfielder Eric Alexander impressed when given his chance last season, while Chicago Fire goalkeeper Sean Johnson – a fourth round pick – ousted previous incumbent Andrew Dykstra to make the number one jersey his own and earn an international call-up in the process.
Ahead of this year’s picks, all the hype surrounds the NCAA Cup-winning Akron graduates, looking to follow in the footsteps of ‘Class of 2009’ members Bunbury, Blair Gavin and Ben Zemanski. No less than five of their players have been named in the prestigious ‘Generation Adidas’ selection, while a sixth – Anthony Ampaipitakwong – is expected to be one of the first picks in Thursday’s SuperDraft.
However, while some have the pressures of a burgeoning reputation from their college days, two more players stand out just as much if not more, simply for the prestige attached to their surname in the world of football. Those players are Konrad Warzycha and John Rooney.
Warzycha is a more-than-capable college-level attacking midfielder, possessing all the attributes to succeed at professional level, but his task in his rookie season may be made that much harder by the reputation of his father. Everton fans with long memories may remember Polish international midfielder Robert Warzycha spending nearly four years at Goodison Park and becoming the first foreigner to score a Premier League goal when he netted in a 3-0 win over Manchester United. However it is in the MLS where he has really made his name.
He joined Columbus in the first season of Major League Soccer and remained there for a further six years, making 160 appearances. After retiring in 2002 he joined the Crew’s coaching staff and has led the club to successive MLS cup quarter-finals in his two years as manager.
If Konrad can achieve even a fraction of what his father achieved then he will have made a significant mark, but it will character to respond if fans become impatient. Such impatience is made all the more probable both by the success of Robert in Columbus and the success of Konrad with the Ohio State Buckeyes, but he should have the mental fortitude (not to mention the physical ability) to succeed at this level.
The same is not certain of Rooney. The younger brother of Manchester United and England star Wayne, John comes to MLS with a less-than-illustrious reputation. Like his brother, John Rooney joined Everton as a child, but was released in 2002, months before Wayne burst on to the scene with a winning goal against Arsenal.
From there he moved to Macclesfield, in English football’s fourth tier, and earned the occasional headline mainly based on his surname. A substitute appearance in a narrow FA Cup defeat to his former side in 2009 was a rare highlight, and figures of three goals in 41 appearances hardly struck fear into the hearts of opponents.
I had the opportunity to see John Rooney play for Macclesfield in a League Cup tie against West Ham in August 2008. Admittedly a 15-minute run-out for a team reduced to 10 men is not the best guide to a player’s ability, but the fact that a manager of the calibre of the late Keith Alexander used him so sparingly (nearly half of his 41 appearances came from the bench) suggest he was never destined to reach the heights hit by his brother at the same age.
That is not to say he cannot have a successful time of things, be it in the MLS or elsewhere. Plenty of other footballers have had careers which ought to have been deemed successful in their own right, only to lose their gloss due to an unfair perception that they had (or have) failed to emerge from the shadows of more celebrated relatives.
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On Sunday night, Paolo Cannavaro was part of a Napoli side which trounced Juventus 3-0 at the Stadio Luigi Ferraris. He has played more than 250 professional games and is yet to reach his 30th birthday, yet many will still look at his failure to emulate elder brother Fabio.
Similarly, Kasper Schmeichel was one of the stars as Leeds came within a minute of shocking Arsenal in the FA Cup third round. He is still only 24 – relatively young in goalkeeping terms – but some continue to judge him by the unrealistic standards set by his father Peter.
On that basis, it is understandable that John Rooney has moved abroad. While still a recognised figure stateside, his brother does not dominate the front and back pages of national newspapers to nearly the same degree. Hopefully he will be given a chance to kickstart his career (bear in mind he is still only 20) and carve a niche for himself in a league where he can begin with a completely blank slate.
As for Warzycha, the story is slightly different. A naturalised American, he has grown up almost embedded in the MLS way of life, while success in the college system brings added pressures. However, based on his achievements to this date, such pressures have seemed to spur on the 21-year-old, and the 18 MLS clubs will be bearing this in mind when they make their picks on Thursday.
It will be interesting to see what has become of Warzycha and Rooney five or six months down the line. The duo may have arrived at this stage through greatly different routes, but similarities remain both in the pressures they have faced throughout their career, and the determination required of them just to get this far.