KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Matt Besler won't tell you he's tired, not in so many words.
The veteran center back will acknowledge that he's played a lot of minutes over the past two seasons, since breaking in with the U.S. national team in 2013. He'll talk about the benefits of a little time off.
But Sporting Kansas City's hometown star, captain – and since July, one of their three Designated Players – won't say he could use a break as his side attempt to break.
“I'm not going to admit that,” Besler told MLSsoccer.com on Tuesday. “I'm not going to make any excuses for anything – personally, teamwise.”
Still, there's no denying that Besler has put a lot of mileage on his legs since the beginning of 2013, between helping
Sporting win the 2013 MLS Cup title
and making himself a mainstay for a U.S. team that qualified for its seventh straight World Cup and then
reached the round of 16 before falling 2-1 to Belgium in extra time.
A minimum regular season for an MLS club is 35 matches – 34 in league play and one in the U.S. Open Cup. That's 70 games in two years, a total of 6,300 minutes (6,360 if both Cup matches go to extra time) for any player who manages to go the distance in all of them.
At 6,408 competitive minutes for club and country in the past two years, the equivalent of 71.4 regulation matches, Besler's already already surpassed the two-year minimum – and that's with nine games to go across all competitions before the end of this regular season, starting with Friday's away match against Chivas USA in league play (10:30 pm ET;
MLS LIVE
) as Sporting try to put an end to both a four-match losing streak and their sudden propensity for giving up multiple goals.
That's a natural outgrowth of success, manager Peter Vermes told MLSsoccer.com on Tuesday.
“It's the life of an international player,” said Vermes, who played for the U.S. at the 1990 World Cup. “I did it for 10 years. My world was, I was flying back from Europe to every one of our qualification games. So believe me, I understand what it takes. But that's the price you pay if that's what you want. So it goes with the territory.
“What about all the guys in Europe that play on their club team, Champions League and then national team games? When you're on Man City, Man United, Arsenal, Inter Milan – when you're on those teams, you think about all the games they're playing because they're in every tournament there is.”
In single-table leagues, though, every club wraps up on the same weekend and has the same time off between then and the start of the next season. But while MLS' regular season runs through October, Sporting's 2013 campaign didn't end until Dec. 7. That didn't leave much time off for Besler – who also got married this offseason – before he, club and World Cup teammate
Graham Zusi
and midfielder
Benny Feilhaber
were called into the Nats' January camp.
Again, Vermes said, that's a consequence of success – to some extent, for everyone returning from that title run.
“It's a well-known fact that when a team wins a championship, that next year is a difficult year,” he said on Thursday, during the club's weekly news conference. “It's not just motivation. You've been through a lot to get there and then you have a very short break based on the way the season goes. So a lot of guys are tired.
“But at the same time, we know that we're coming to that time in the season where we've got to get going and come to a place where we can make a big push at the end. Right now, I don't think anybody's asking for any time off.”
Vermes said he and Besler have discussed the issue this week, though: “Matt's like, 'We've got to get in form. I'm not looking for time off at the moment, no.'”
Vermes would have precedent for giving him some, though.
About this time last year, Vermes held Besler out of three straight league matches. The decision sparked rumors of a sudden falling-out between the two, but Vermes said later that he wanted to give the defender some time off to rest for the run-up to the postseason and Sporting's eventual triumph in the MLS Cup final.
Besler didn't like talking being held out at the time, but acknowledged on Tuesday that there are times when a mandated rest can help.
“Any time you're forced to sit out and watch from up above, or watch from the outside, sometimes it's good,” he said. “You see things differently. It just sort of refreshes your mind.”
This season, though, that's probably not going to happen.
“We don't have the luxury that we had a year ago,” Vermes said on Thursday. “We had a healthy team. I don't think we had one guy with a season-ending injury. This year we have three – two season and one career in
Peterson Joseph
. Those were all guys that were impact players in the team.
“When you look at the amount of games that we have to play, this would be where you give guys rest. But right now, we don't have that luxury.”
One of the season-ending injuries was to center back
Ike Opara
, who hasn't played since
breaking a bone in his right ankle
on March 29. Opara made 13 starts last season and was expected to play an even bigger role this year with Besler on World Cup duty.
“Ike is a very big part of this team,” Besler said. “Whether he was starting or whether he was filling in, he played a major role. But we've known that Ike is going to be out for a while now, and so we don't look back. The guys that fill in – you look at
Kevin Ellis
playing center back, and he's done great. He's done a very good job. You can't look back at certain guys, and injuries, and international duty, and say, 'What if?' You have to play with what you're given, and you have to make the best of it.”
The loss of right back
Chance Myers
to an
Achilles tear in late May
has caused ripples in the central defense as well. Twenty-year-old
Igor Juliao
became Vermes' first choice at the spot, and has shown skill and creativity in the attack, but his defensive shortcomings have forced right-side center back
Aurelien Collin
to play more of a protective role.
That, in turn, has made Besler cover a bigger patch of the defensive third – often in a position where it is harder for him to use his dominant left foot.
The consequences of that backline depletion aren't only felt on match days, Vermes said.
“When you don't have Ike and Chance in the team – sorry, but you lose so much,” he said. “It's not just the player. It's also the competition for that position, which raises the training and everything else. So all of that is big.”
Adding to the pressure on Besler is that he and Zusi both
signed Designated Player deals
in July, not long after returning from Brazil. Fans lauded both at the time – especially Besler, who grew up in the Kansas City suburbs and has twice spurned interest from overseas to stay with his hometown club – but the extensions also raised outside expectations on the two friends, who have found themselves targets for criticism during the club's recent struggles.
“I don't really sit there and analyze other people, and what other people are going to think,” Besler said. “I just play. I feel like any guy that's been around here for five or six years is going to have a big role and is going to be held to a high standard. Any guy on this team is going to be held to a high standard. So there's always pressures, no matter what your contract is or where you play or who you are.”
And with Sporting giving up 11 goals over the course of the losing streak – including one on a
penalty he conceded in last weekend's 2-1 loss
at New York – Besler is putting even more pressure on himself these days.
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About that penalty, though: In fairness to Besler, the play that led to it pointed up yet another key absence – that of defensive midfielder
Uri Rosell
,
sold to Sporting Clube de Portugal
at midseason.
Rosell was an interception machine for Kansas City, snuffing out one opposing possession after another before it could be a problem for the backline. But after his departure, opponents have been able to find more space to maneuver where the middle third and Sporting's defensive third meet.
That was the case against New York, when
Thierry Henry
had time and space to deliver a through ball to Golden Boot leader
Bradley Wright-Phillips
. Besler, pulled to his right on the play, tried to tackle the ball away with his off leg but was whistled for bringing down Wright-Phillips just inside the area.
True to form, though, Besler remains focused on his own game rather than on who's not around to help.
“I've got to get better,” he said. “Got to get better. We've given up goals during this stretch that we should not give up, so you've got to look at yourself first. You've got to make sure that you correct those mistakes. You just have to move forward. You can't let it affect you too much, but you have to want to – you have to be committed to getting better, and you have to be committed to the system and getting results.”
Even if, deep down, he could do with a day off.
Steve Brisendine covers Sporting Kansas City for MLSsoccer.com.
