COLUMBUS, Ohio – After years in the US youth national team ranks, Columbus Crew SC midfielder Wil Trapp finally earned his first senior-team cap against Chile on Jan. 28.
But it wasn’t quite the debut the 22-year-old was looking for. His 30 minutes of action as a second-half substitute came in a 3-2 loss, and Columbus’ midfield general wasn’t pleased with his performance.
“Sometimes that first one’s not great, which, in my case, it wasn’t my favorite game,” he said. “But I think it’s one of those where I’ll learn more from it than if it was the Panama game where we kind of just put it to bed early. It’s a learning experience; everything is a learning experience.”
Trapp said he’s looking to build on the performance, however, and hopes to be more accustomed to the international game in his next opportunity.
“Adjusting to the pace of the game [was hard], which is never easy as a substitute,” he said. “But just getting quicker into it and maybe completing your first few passes always adds a bit of confidence, just little things. As it wears on, you just forget about the situation and focus on trying to win the game.”
Perhaps contributing to Trapp’s uncertain first 30 minutes was his unfamiliar position. In a 4-4-2 diamond that head coach Jurgen Klinsmann switched to in the middle of the match, Trapp was forced into a wide midfield role.
Trapp has consistently played in the deepest-lying midfield role on the field for both Akron and Crew SC, where his natural distribution abilities can come to the forefront. But despite the position, Trapp expected more.
“At the same time I got on the field,” he said. “You make adjustments, so as I said, it’s a learning experience. … There’s nothing you can do about it. You can’t make excuses. You just take your opportunities as you can.”
Even in training in the days leading up to the match, Trapp said Klinsmann didn’t have him deployed in his usual spot.
“I wasn’t so much in the deep-lying role,” he said. “I was kind of on the periphery of that.”
Trapp described his role as playing “out on the left” at the beginning of his 30 minutes and said he “kind of moved out right” toward the end. He said they used “mostly” a 3-5-2 formation during training – which they started with against Chile but quickly abandoned – though Klinsmann gave players “maybe a couple hints that (the 4-4-2) would possibly be the change.”
Trapp said he never had a “direct conversation” with Klinsmann about his positioning or where he was going to be playing.
“That’s always subject to change,” Trapp said.
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But Trapp said he focused on what the coaches seemed to appreciate, and followed the lead of others.
“You take cues from training… if they’re applauding someone for doing this thing well while they’re playing the position, you just kind of absorb those things and build off of those things,” he said.
Easing Trapp’s transition was his friendliness with other USMNT players. He played college soccer with both Dillon Serna and DeAndre Yedlin, and said everyone made him comfortable in camp.
“It’s cool getting to see Michael Bradley and getting to sit down and have conversations at dinner or whatever it was,” he said. “Mix Diskerud was kind of my guy I hung out with a lot there. Matt Besler is an awesome guy as well. But I have nothing bad to say about anyone there. Everyone was very accommodating and we were all in it together.”
But camp wasn’t entirely friendly. As should be expected from training under Klinsmann, Trapp said there were some edgy sessions.
“Your focus is elevated; the physical side of the game is elevated because everyone is running hard and flying in on tackles,” he said. “Jurgen likes that. He likes that ‘nastiness,’ is what he calls it. So [I was] just trying to adjust to that and coming through still in preseason for a lot of MLS guys. So it was a little bit of a game-changer at first, getting used to that.”
And after his first camp experience, Trapp – perhaps out of necessity – says he’s developing his own approach for his next USMNT call-up.
“I know now kind of the ins and outs of how the camp is run, what Jurgen expects, and I’ve formulated my own approach to how to deal with those things,” he said. “If he wants to stress fitness, [I’ll] do a couple extra runs just in case – stuff like that. But otherwise I wouldn’t change too much.”
Trapp expects that next cap to come, and doesn’t think Klinsmann will judge him too harshly on his first experience.
“The good thing with Jurgen is that he doesn’t give up on young guys, especially in their first game with 30 minutes,” he said. “He’s not going to just toss you to the wolves. So I’ll just stay positive and keep working hard.”
Andrew King covers Columbus Crew SC for MLSsoccer.com.
