Major League Soccer has seen a notable upturn in the distance and duration of preseason travels by its clubs this season and with three training camps in three different states, D.C. United are no exception to that phenomenon.
After stints in Florida and California, the team got a few brief days back in the Washington area last week before jetting off to the San Antonio area for final preparations leading up to their March 12 CONCACAF Champions' Cup opener against Jamaican side Harbour View FC.
While United head coach Tom Soehn has made clear his dissatisfaction with the offseason conditioning -- or lack thereof -- of some of his players, the club's participation in the Texas Pro Soccer Festival gives him three matches to further craft a starting lineup while testing the readiness of his reserves.
"Our starting points weren't great fitness-wise," said Soehn, "but we've impacted that quite a bit. Every camp seems to get better and better, and as our fitness gets better so does the soccer. So hopefully this third camp will now put us in a situation where we can work on tactics quite a bit more, because now the little intangibles are getting done."
But even as they hone the finer points of their game, the Black-and-Red must fight off the inevitable tedium and homesickness brought on by weeks on the road.
"Yeah, you start to miss D.C. You start to miss the home-cooked meals," said defender Bryan Namoff. "Especially just being married, I definitely miss that. And just being on the road takes a toll, living in hotels and eating out every day."
Namoff tied the knot in December. But that separation from family has become an annual rite for veterans like Jaime Moreno, who has grown accustomed to leaving his wife Louise and their five children in order to undergo the strenuous labors of training camp.
"You always take time away from your family to get in shape and you do it for a good reason," said Moreno. "At the same time, the family, they are used to it now, to all the traveling that we do, even though it still takes a lot of time."
There's a common perception that coaches delight in removing their players from the comforts of home in order to sharpen focus and speed the process of team bonding. While Soehn acknowledges those factors, he notes that his staff is experiencing the same sort of stress themselves.
"It's strenuous on coaches, too," he said. "So everybody deals with it the way they have to. That's life. In a lot of ways, it's a good thing, too, that we're away, because you focus on the one and only thing: the team. But that's normal, everybody goes through these times. It's always nice to come home in between, so you can reacquaint yourself with the family."
United's mélange of personalities and nationalities has added a different dimension to the inevitable mental monotony that sets in during two-a-days. A host of new signings, many arriving with little to no English skills, have required everyone on the team to step outside their comfort zones and find ways to connect, even when verbal communication is halting at best.
"Guys being around each other all day long for weeks at a time, you're obviously going to get sick of one another," admitted Namoff. "You're definitely forced to talk to one another. You have communications with players that obviously don't know too much English, but you get by and start to learn. You break that cultural divide."
Soehn hopes to use this week's meetings with Chivas USA, Toronto FC and Houston Dynamo to get his starters fully familiarized with one another, though the tight schedule will also present opportunities for backups and trialists to make an impression.
"We've got three matches in less than a week, and you're not going to put your starting XI out in all three games," he explained, "So I think we're going to pick our games to now see what our supporting cast is like and see what our depth is like. It's not so much the results for me as learning to see what our potential is, especially knowing we have so many games [this season]."
Charles Boehm is a contributor to MLSnet.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Soccer or its clubs.
