It's still early in the offseason but if you ask the Flyers Front Office, it's never too early to get to work. The biggest problem the team suffered last season was inconsistency. Sometimes the team would go off like in their 7-0 BSL Cup Semi-final stomping of Gateway United. Other times, the whole team would fizzle like in the numerous games in which they scored only one or two points. This is the reason that the Flyers finished what was an otherwise impressive first season with only a 2.5 APG. So what can be done to improve the squad overall while solving this problem as well? Let's break it down.
Step One - Improve the overall quality of the squad.
The big names on the Flyers' roster definitely delivered this season. First and foremost, Mauro Rosales put up 13 points through the regular season and BSL Cup play. Marvin Chavez put up 9 points of his own. Finally, Marco DiVaio managed six points from his first start during week fifteen onward.
On the other hand, the squad had several regular contributors who either failed to score, or only found the back of the net once. Guys like Steven Beitashour, Adam Moffat, Justin Braun, Alejandro Moreno, and Kosuke Kimura regularly took up starting spots but never seemed to put up points.
This is the big rub. Having stars who put up major points can send you far in this league. But it doesn't get you far enough. Stars get hurt, they don't make their MLS team's lineup because of CCL play, or their MLS team simply has a bye week and you have to make do without them. That's where overall squad quality comes in. Having a whole roster of guys who can score on any given week, even if they don't score every week, makes the difference. They win you games your stars aren't playing in. And they win you games against teams who can match you star for star, but don't have the squad depth you do. Darlington Nagbe scored five times during the regular season and added two more during the post season. Mike Magee put five on the board as well. These types of journeymen players do the hard work behind the scenes.
Step Two - Stay Spread Out
One of the ways a team's stars don't play is if their MLS team has a bye week. Nobody from that team's playing. Sometimes this plays to a team's advantage if they get to dodge the opposition's big star. Sometimes it goes the other way. In any case, when combined with an all around quality squad, making sure the team doesn't take a major hit from any given bye week a team can put up more points than its opponents. Generally, having more than a couple players from a single MLS team on the roster is a poor idea. As a result, not only is putting together a BSL winning squad about finding quality for your full squad of players, it's about finding it among many different MLS teams so that you have access to that quality all the time.
What it boils down to is learning how to evaluate players at all levels of the game. How much playing time can they expect with their club? How often do they score? Are they assist machines and so, score in BSL play as often as many of the top level strikers in MLS? These are all questions that budding managers for BSL clubs would do well to pay attention to. Sometimes it's hard, but spending time to become a great talent evaluator is one of the best ways to end up at the top of the table.
