HANOVER, N.J. – The absence of Thierry Henry from the New York Red Bulls this season has been well documented.
While the unbeaten Red Bulls haven’t yet missed the longtime star too much on the field, the void created by his offseason retirement – coupled with Tim Cahill’s move to China – has left many within the RBNY locker room in a somewhat unfamiliar position.
Without a true star or face of the franchise on the roster, first-year head coach Jesse Marsch has elected to build a “leadership council.” Consisting of new captain Dax McCarty, goalkeeper Luis Robles, midfielder Lloyd Sam and several other veterans, the council spreads leadership responsibilities around the locker room instead of placing the entire onus on one or two players.
“Other guys have always had big personalities, but obviously when you have Thierry in the team, there’s always a bigger personality no matter what,” McCarty said. “He’s always going to overshadow anything that other guys say, and that’s fine. That’s how it should have been.
“But now that he’s gone and some other players are gone, it’s more of a case of this is a team of seven, eight, nine, 10 really experienced, veteran guys. All of us see ourselves on the same level in terms of our leadership and our abilities and our roles. It was obvious that when Thierry was here, he was the main man. His decisions and his word went a long way. Now with him gone, guys can step up, and what they say goes a little bit further now.”
The changes within the locker room have already become apparent both on and off the field. Players who were perhaps content to fade into the background in years past are now taking it upon themselves to lead in their own way, fostering a more professional environment within the team.
“It’s built accountability,” Robles told MLSsoccer.com. “Guys have to make sure that guys are doing what’s supposed to be done, whether it’s on the field, off the field, in the locker room, in the community, whatever we’re called upon to do. We have a responsibility, and we’re the guys that have to make sure that not only that that gets relayed, but accounted for.”
With a new mentality engrained in the camp, players are beginning to buy in to a club no longer dependent upon one or two key figures. Thanks in large part to the introduction of the council, the communication between players and coaching staff has vastly improved this year.
“[Marsch] wants to get the players a lot more involved in everything that happens,” said Sam. “So if there are things that don’t agree with the players, he wants the leadership council to come to him [with suggestions]. It’s not just the management deciding everything; he’s got the players involved.”
Each player now has a more defined voice in the side, as players young and old are encouraged to speak their mind. While a chain of command admittedly still exists, there are more opportunities for newcomers to have their voices heard.
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“There’s a hierarchy in every locker room,” McCarty said. “The guys that have been in the league longest, the guys that have played professionally longest, the guys that have been on the team longest; they’re always going to have more of a say in the media, in the training sessions, in the games, in the way things are going with the team.
“With that being said, I love that our young guys aren’t afraid to talk and give us their opinions and speak their mind. This is an environment where every player’s opinion is valued and every player’s opinion matters. You’re never going to win a championship with five or six guys.”
As the season continues, each player’s role within the locker room may increase or decrease to varying extents. There will be days when being a vocal leader may fall to a fresh face, or when a normally quiet veteran will take a younger player aside in a coachable moment.
Regardless, the leadership that now falls on a group rather than an individual has put positive pressure on New York’s experienced players to prepare their team week in and week out, giving them more of a feeling of ownership than they may have had in the past.
“The one thing that’s really good about this collaborative effort is that it allows people to feel ownership,” Robles said. “Ownership in what they’re doing, in what the team is trying to achieve. Jesse’s coined the term ‘all in,’ and of course it’s not anything new, but it allows us to start to carve out our identity. Are we going to be all in as individuals to this collective effort? Our responsibility as this council is to continue to parlay that responsibility, continue to get guys to buy in each and every day.”
