The Tampa Bay Rowdies are one of the few teams in the NASL operating in the Fall Season with the same exact pool of players they had in the Spring Season. That is the case because of ill-timed injuries to the only acquisitions that the club has made during the Fall Season.

Former No. 1 MLS Superdraft Picks Freddy Adu and Omar Salgado, who were both brought into the fold in July to bolster the attack, were back out on the training field today after being sidelined with knocks shortly after their debuts.

Salgado was able to go a little harder in training today compared to Adu, who is slightly behind in recovering from his Achilles injury.

One of the quibbles that owner Bill Edwards mentioned when let go of Thomas Rongen and Farrukh Quraishi was the lack of changes by the team during the midsummer break, telling the Tampa Bay Times,”… between the spring and fall there was a lot of changes to everybody’s team. We didn’t change anything. We stayed the same.”

It’s true that the Rowdies may not have been as active as some teams, but it could be argued that the additions of Adu and Salgado were two of the boldest and most promising changes any NASL team has made during the season. However, it’s virtually impossible to judge the success of the moves when the two players have only combined for 27 minutes so far.

Tampa Bay looked like a different team when Freddy Adu came off the bench late against the Fort Lauderdale Strikers on July 25. The club ultimately lost that contest 3-1, but Adu’s vision and distribution set Maicon Santos up with a goal that gave them the slightest bit of hope in stoppage time.

Salgado also displayed some enticing attributes in his brief first appearance against Jacksonville on August 8, which is also the last time the Rowdies won a match. The 6ft4 forward didn’t score, but came close and demonstrated some versatility with a combination of physicality and technical ability that not many on the roster possess. He’s the closest thing the Rowdies have to a second option for what Maicon Santos provides as a central forward. Considering the streaky nature of Santos’ season, that’s a valuable option to have at your disposal.

Now that they’ve returned to training with the first team, the only question is if they can work their way into the gameday roster. Both Adu and Salgado had strong ties to, and had the confidence of, former coach Thomas Rongen. With only 10 games remaining in the season to clinch a postseason spot, new coach Stuart Campbell has little time to waste on lineup tinkering or experimentation. Salgado and Adu will need to earn their place beyond a doubt in training.

The stark truth, though, is that Campbell needs to find goals wherever he can get them if the club is going to secure one of the three remaining playoff spots. The Rowdies have tallied 11 goals through 10 games in the Fall Season. Only Jacksonville, with 10 goals, has scored fewer.

Adu is obviously not an option for Saturday’s home match against the New York Cosmos and Salgado is highly unlikely given the short notice, but throwing the two back into the mix for the final stretch of the regular season breathes some necessary life into an attack that has struggled to produce consistently.

IMAGE, PATRICK PATTERSON