A Week to Forget

What started out as a good opportunity for the Tampa Bay Rowdies to create a bit of breathing room in the overall standings last week ended in bitter disappointment, as the club took only one point from three matches in eight days.

The last two matches were particularly hard to stomach. Some tough referee decisions allowed Indy to equalize at Al Lang and also nullified a strong road performance in Minnesota. Rowdies Head Coach Stuart Campbell isn’t interested in getting lost throwing a pity party, though.

“We created some good chances against arguably the best team in the league,” said Campbell about the narrow 1-0 loss to Minnesota. “I thought we were, well I know we were on top until Ben got his second yellow card, which I’ve looked at a thousand times and I thought it was a bit harsh, honestly. If you want to book somebody for that then you have to be consistent and then both teams probably end up with seven men. But at the end of the day, the referee makes his decision and we have to live by it. Even though we went down to 10 men, I still thought we equipped ourselves very well and at the end I thought we were going to nick a goal to get a point on the road.”

Campbell has been sure to stress to the team the importance of not dwelling on past results or questionable referee decisions.

“I’m a firm believer in the harder you work, the luckier you’ll get. And that’s what I reiterated to the guys. We can’t feel sorry for ourselves. Things haven’t quite gone our way for whatever reason over the past couple of weeks, but we have to keep going. We can’t let it affect us. We’ve got to take heart from the performances we’ve put in and just go from there.”

Attacking Inconsistencies

The defense has been steady throughout most of Campbell’s short time in charge, but the attack has been frustratingly inconsistent. The Rowdies have been held scoreless in three of their last five matches.

“I don’t want to harp on about luck. I don’t want to harp on about quality. I think we just need to be a bit more aggressive and keep getting into good positions. I think that’s been the one good thing, we’ve continued to get into good positions. We haven’t shied away and started hiding. So we just have to start being more aggressive and start taking those chances. And we’ve gotta start doing it quickly.”

Campbell sounds upbeat on the two Fall Season additions, Freddy Adu and Long Tan. The two have seen significant playing time in the last two matches and combined for the lone goal against Indy.

“It’s not easy for Long Tan. He’s just come in the building and I’ve started him pretty quickly, but he’s done well. He obviously got the goal against Indy and was unfortunate not to get one against Minnesota. Freddy’s fully fit now. It’s taken him a little while to get fully fit because of one or two issues, but he’s done well. As has the whole team over the past couple of weeks.”

International Absences

The international game has kept Darwin Espinal, a major contributor in the attack, out of the lineup for the past three matches. The club is taking another blow this week with the departure of Richard Menjivar for El Salvador’s exhibition matches.

“It’s great for Darwin to go and represent his country, but it’s not great for us because he’s a talented kind and we definitely miss him when he’s been gone. He’s been absolutely electric for us coming off the bench. And then with Richard Menjivar, it’s unfortunate because he gets two or three games under his belt for us and then he’s off again. But playing for your country, you can’t deny anybody that opportunity.”

Unpredictable Playoff Race

Despite the rocky week, the Rowdies are still in the thick of the race for the fourth playoff spot in the combined standings. The team is currently even with Edmonton and Fort Lauderdale on points, but trail both clubs in goal differential. In fact, the NASL table is tight all over. Every club is, remarkably, still technically alive in the postseason race with less than a month to go.

“I think that speaks volumes for the quality of the league. It’s improved year after year and it’s shown that anybody can beat anybody. If you can string a run of three wins together, then you can shoot from the bottom up to the top. And then vice versa, if you drop two or three, you can drop from the top to midtable. From a coaching standpoint it just shows how strong the league is, and that can only be good for the future.”

“I tried to look at it all and there are just so many different permutations that you have to take it game by game. We have to start wining quickly. We can’t rely on anyone else to get us into the playoffs.”

IMAGE, TAMPA BAY ROWDIES