LOS ANGELES – LAFC sit third in the Western Conference at the midpoint of its inaugural season, just four points off the lead, and the club's entertaining attack has them streaking from victory to victory – four in a row if it not for the stoppage-time collapse on Tuesday in Houston.
Now Carlos Vela, Marco Ureña and Omar Gaber are coming back from the World Cup, just as MLS Player of the Month/Week Adama Diomande is seriously going off and 21-year-old Portuguese phenom Andre Hortaprepares for his debut when the transfer window opens.
LAFC (9-4-4) have an abundance of riches in midfield and attack. Now, with everyone focused solely on club, they aim to find another gear and explode onto the next level – whatever that might be – much as Atlanta United did last year.
But coach Bob Bradley knows there's far more to it, and that his team has much work ahead if it wants to contend for silverware in year one. Integrating those returning from Russia isn't as simple as it might appear.
“One of the thing I know from experience is that after World Cups, there's not only how does a guy feel physically, but where is he mentally,” Bradley said following LAFC's training session Thursday afternoon at the club's Performance Center at Cal State Los Angeles. “And the decisions we make with those guys in the short term have to also be good for us to finish the season in the best way possible.”
If they're focused and sharp, the prospects are pretty enticing. The talismanic Vela has been a sensation in MLS, fusing a dynamic attack while scoring seven goals and assisting five more in a dozen games. And he's been on the field just eight minutes with Diomande, who has seven goals and two assists in his last five games.
Diego Rossi has been a force for LAFC's offense, Latif Blessing has done some nice things and the Benny Feilhaber-Lee Nguyen combination behind the group in front has been terrific. There are a lot of options.
“It's going to be fun,” Feilhaber told MLSsoccer.com, “watching it from the bench.”
That's part of it. Someone has to sit.
“When you get a deeper team, that means there's more competition,” Bradley said. “I've joked with the team that we've had days where picking the 18 wasn't so hard, because we only had 18 guys. And now you've got a strong group of 24 or 25, and everybody's sharp and fit, and picking 18 becomes harder. That's a good thing.”
Vela and Rossi celebrate | USA Today Sports Images
Vela is the pivotal figure.
“He's a fantastic guy, and the football we saw [from him] in the World Cup, we see everyday,” Bradley said. “I thought he played very well [in Russia], and he's very motivated for what this team can accomplish in the second half of the season.”
It's been more than two months since Ureña last saw the field for LAFC. He started LAFC’s first seven games, totaling five assists, then was suffered facial fractures in late April, but he started Costa Rica's first two Group E games, against Serbia and Brazil. His role in the second half of the season will depend on the kind of form he finds in his return.
“There's all these factors,” said Bradley, who guided the US men's national team at the 2010 World Cup. “[You face] the media pressure, the pressure of everyone in the [home] country, so when that World Cup ends, there's a lot of emotion involved. And I think that becomes important to understand in each player's case.”
All three LAFC players are coming off disappointments to one extent or another. Ureña and Costa Rica, so impressive four years earlier in Brazil, failed to win a game and finished last in their group. Vela had a strong tournament for Mexico – he was arguably El Tri's top performer – but the joy that accompanied the Germany upset dissipated in defeats to Swedenand Brazil, the latter for a seventh straight Round of 16 exit.
Marco Ureña in Russia | Reuters
Gaber, who returned earlier this week but hasn't trained fully as he recovers from a quadriceps injury suffered in Russia, didn't see any action for Egypt, who lost all three of their Group A games.
“The experience was good, that we qualified after 28 years, but we didn't play so good,” Gaber told MLSsoccer.com. “We didn't win, so it was disappointing. ... To be in the 23[-player roster] is quite an honor, for sure it was a good thing. I was hoping to play, for sure, in the World Cup, but I didn't make it. So I have more [aspiration] to be in the next World Cup.”
Bradley is eager to have everyone together, with nothing else in the way.
“We all feel things are going in the right direction,” he said. “I think we've got an interesting group. And there's a different challenge in the first half of the season, because we didn't have everybody, we had to deal with the World Cup. And now little by little when everybody's healthy, I think it makes training better, and the ideas we've worked on since the beginning of the season continue.
“We want to just see if, football-wise, we get sharper [and] do things at a higher level over and over. There's been enough good signs, but there's still a lot that can improve.”
