PHILADELPHIA – Philadelphia Union interim manager John Hackworth smiled when asked how the coaching duties were being divided up between him and D.C. United head man Ben Olsen during the MLS All-Star team’s first training session.
“Today, Ben took one five-v-two and I took the other one,” Hackworth said. “And that was about it.”
WATCH: All-Stars ready for Chelsea
Indeed, for Olsen (above), the head coach of the MLS All-Stars, and Hackworth, one of the team’s assistants, Monday’s practice at the NovaCare Complex was mainly about getting the players together and having a little bit of fun.
The strategy will come later, once the all-stars are more acclimated to Philadelphia.
“Today was about enjoying ourselves and getting the flight and games out of guys,” Olsen told MLSsoccer.com. “A lot of them had a lot of travel. Some of them got in late last night. And after this, we have a lot of responsibilities with the league and community here. It’s important for us to be as low-key on their bodies as possible right now. Tomorrow we’ll get them on the same page to try to have some success against Chelsea.”
A few players – including San Jose’s Steven Beitashour, Justin Morrow and Chris Wondolowski, and Vancouver’s Jay DeMerit – were not present for Monday’s practice because they played Sunday and had not yet arrived in town.
That was one of the reasons why Olsen said he’s yet to figure out his lineup for Wednesday’s matchup against Chelsea at PPL Park (8:30 pm ET, ESPN2). First, he noted, he’ll need to evaluate everyone physically and see what kind of workload they’ll be able to put in.
“It’s not so much all of the great players,” Olsen said, on the difficulty of making an all-star lineup. “It’s that some have little nicks and some guys are coming off of a red-eye. It’s about which guys can put 90 in and which guys are better off with 45. It’s got to be that balance. It’s a little different than what I’m doing in D.C.”
Trying to get everyone from different teams to come together is also something that’s obviously much different from Olsen’s normal day-to-day duties with United. But both he and Hackworth made sure to stress that little attention should be paid to how the coaches operate and that all the attention should be on the players.
“We’ll try to get them on the same page,” Olsen said. “We’ll give them a template but you can only do so much in 36 hours of getting a team on the same page. That’s the beauty of it. It’s about the individuals. They’ll go out there, try to gel under quick circumstances and help each other out.”
E-mail Dave Zeitlin at djzeitlin@gmail.com.
