Major League Soccer spring training is back in Tucson for the seventh consecutive year, albeit with new teams and a different name.
Eleven MLS clubs will compete in the 2018 Mobile Mini Sun Cup at the Kino Sports Complex. Matches begin Saturday, Feb. 3, when the LA Galaxy takes on Real Salt Lake at Kino North Stadium followed by a rivalry match between the Seattle Sounders and Portland Timbers. The San Jose Earthquakes, Colorado Rapids, FC Dallas, New York Red Bulls, New England Revolution, Houston Dynamo and Sporting Kansas City will also play matches over the next three weeks, with the final set for Feb. 24. The tournament replaces the Desert Friendlies and Desert Diamond Cup, which were winter staples in Tucson.
Here are three things to watch as play begins:
1. New year, new coach. Portland will have a new face at coach for the 2018 season. Giovanni Savarese replaces Caleb Porter, who stepped down in December after five seasons with the club. Savarese is the third head coach in the Timbers’ seven-year MLS history.
Savarese played for the NY/NJ Metrostars, New England Revolution and San Jose Earthquakes in a professional career that ended in 2004. He began working for the North American Soccer League’s New York Cosmos in 2010. He was promoted to head coach for the 2013 season; he spent five seasons with the Cosmos before moving to Portland.
Not too many head coaches get to walk into a winning situation — the Timbers were the Western Conference regular-season champions — but Savarese has a plan to improve.
“One of the things that I thought was important for us was to be stronger defensively, and that we become a team more compact, more difficult to be broken and that’s what we’re working on,” he said.
Saturday, Savarese will get his first taste of the heated Cascadia Cup rivalry.
“Seattle who? I’m kidding. Everyone understands the importance of the Portland Timbers-Seattle game. Those games are different, those games are derbies, those games are ones where defense has a little more pride in it and we understand the responsibility we have in that match,” Savarese said. “Whoever doesn’t understand that rivalry lives in a cave; that’s something that is well known not only in the United States but overseas. … There is something more that you play for.”
2. Looking for more in Year 2. No team wants a fresh start more than the Galaxy, which finished the 2017 season 8-18-8 and in last place in the Western Conference.
They can do that with midfielder Romain Alessandrini, who’s in his second season with the Galaxy after coming over from France in 2017. Alessandrini said his first season stateside was “a change,” even though he netted 13 goals as the Galaxy’s top scoring option.
“The culture, the language, the country — and I came here just for my girlfriend,” he said. “The league is different, but I think I did my job to score and get assists. The season wasn’t the season we expected, so this year, we have to be better and be on the top.”
3. Familiar face. Real Salt Lake defender Justen Glad will get another chance to play in front of fans who followed him as a junior star and one year at Catalina Foothills High School
Glad said he misses the food more than anything.
“Sonoran hot dogs: That’s my favorite part of Tucson,” he said. “I’ll probably get one after the game.”
The 20-year-old Glad joined Real Salt Lake’s Arizona Academy in Casa Grande in 2014 and signed a homegrown contract. Glad was named to the U20 United States Men’s National Team. Last year, he traveled to South Korea to play in the U20 World Cup.
He called the experience “awesome.”
“That was for sure one of the highlights of last year,” he said. “When you get to test yourself against the best kids that are your age from around the world, you can always gauge where you’re at and where they’re at.
“It gave me confidence. … It was encouraging to see that we can play against the best teams in the world at a high level, and it’s only improving from there.”
