Legends to quickly get gauge of progress

The Las Vegas Legends are in their third season but they are almost treating things like they were an expansion team.

With a new coach trying to get a revamped roster ready to compete in a new league, the local indoor pro soccer team didn’t want to waste any time preparing for its Oct. 26 season opener in the 23-team Major Arena Soccer League. The Legends have been working out for over a month and they’ll get a good feel for where they’re at today when they host the Mexican National Indoor Team at 3:05 p.m. at Orleans Arena — the team’s permanent home after spending the last two years splitting their schedule between the Orleans and the Las Vegas Sports Park in Summerlin.

“We’re way ahead of where we’d normally be,” said Doug Borgel, the team’s first-year coach. “We’ve gotten to know each other in the short time we’ve been together and I like our fitness and I think we’ll have good chemistry.”

Goaltender Zeke Sanchez, one of several returnees from last year’s team that won its division for the second consecutive year and made it to the semifinals of the 2014 Professional Arena Soccer League playoffs, said today’s game is important for the franchise — both on and off the field.

“We kept a core of guys from last year and we try to push each other to be better,” said Sanchez, a 29-year-old from Argentina who was 9-1 last year with a save percentage of .789. “We want to see where we’re at as a team, but we also want to put on a show for the fans.”

To that end, Borgel will stress offense. He wants goals, goals and more goals.

“We’ll look to push it,” he said. “My coaching philosophy has been I’d rather beat you 9-8 than 1-0. Fans want to see scoring and they want to see you win. So I think you’ll see us take more chances offensively. With Zeke in goal and some of our returning defenders, we have a lot of experience that can allow us to gamble on offense because we know how good those guys are in the back.”

The Legends will play one other tuneup before their Oct. 26 MASL opener against Turlock at the Orleans. Next weekend, they’ll travel to Ontario, Calif., to face the U.S. National Indoor Team. Borgel said the two preseason games are an opportunity to fine-tune the roster and also get everyone comfortable with his system, which gives the players more freedom to create than it did under Meir Cohen, the team’s owner, who stepped aside from coaching this summer to focus on running the business side of the franchise.

“I’ve known Doug a long time,” Sanchez said. “He does give us a lot of freedom. But it’s a team effort. Everyone has to be responsible and do his job if we’re going to be successful.”

Contact reporter Steve Carp at scarp@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2913. Follow him on Twitter: @stevecarprj.