Matt Polster nimbly dribbles past rookie jitters in MLS
One of the photographs the Chicago Fire public relations people sent of Matt Polster for use with this piece shows him playing soccer while wearing gloves.
It’s Chicago in April. Hence the gloves.
The Major League Soccer season is only five games old. But that the frigid Windy City springtime weather has been the biggest adjustment for the Las Vegas pro soccer neophyte — at least so far — shows just what a fine rookie year he’s having.
“I’m in a good place right now,” says the former Palo Verde High standout, and he’s not talking about his flat in the bustling South Loop, with the underground parking garage, which precludes him from having to scrape ice from his windshield before heading off to games and training sessions at Toyota Park in Bridgeview, just off the Stevenson Expressway
He’s talking about defensive midfield for the Fire.
Polster won’t turn 22 until June, and he already has played his way into a starting position, thereby exceeding his expectations, if not the Fire’s.
There’s a reason the Men in Red selected him in the first round with the seventh pick in the MLS SuperDraft in January.
It was not to sit on the bench for very long.
“My goal when I first got drafted was just to make the traveling roster,” Polster said by telephone after the Fire’s training session Friday. “Now that I’ve surpassed that a little bit, I’ve set new goals.”
He won’t say what they are. Maybe if he did, they might make him seem boastful, and being boastful is not his style.
Being confident? That’s another matter. There’s nothing like barging into the lineup right out of the box to build a rookie’s confidence.
Once confidence is built — and once the team finally can win a couple — a good place is usually arrived at.
Chicago stumbled out of the box, losing to the LA Galaxy, Vancouver Whitecaps FC and the San Jose Earthquakes. The last two games have seen the Fire take all six points, with wins over the Philadelphia Union and Toronto FC.
The Fire (if not the weather) are getting hot, but this was an off week in the MLS schedule.
Polster has yet to score his first MLS goal, having taken only one shot, but scoring is not what a defensive midfielder does. A defensive midfielder is supposed to anchor the midfield, to protect the goal — to keep an eye on the other side’s strikers, guys who usually come from Europe or South America and make more money than he does.
If the Soccer By Ives website (SBIsoccer.com) is any indication, there’s a giant piece of metal with two hooks in the midfield where Polster plays — he has been named the SBI MLS Rookie of the Week two weeks running.
At this pace and form, he’ll surely become a fan favorite with the rowdies in Section 8, which is where these vociferous Chicago soccer fans shout epithets at the soccer players on the other team, and sometimes set off red smoke bombs and flares. All in good humor, of course.
Polster said Chicago coach Frank Yallop has given him every opportunity to prove himself and showcase his skills as he makes the transition from the Ohio Valley Conference (Southern Illinois Edwardsville) to MLS.
They call Edwardsville SIUE, or the “E” for short.
It’s a big step up from the “E” to MLS, Polster says.
You might be able to get away with stuff against Drake or Evansville or Central Arkansas. You go in soft against Sporting Kansas City or D.C. United, use the left boot when you should have used the right, the ball’s liable to wind up in the ol’ onion bag, as those Irish soccer announcers refer to one’s net.
“You can’t take a game off at this level,” Polster said. “The biggest jump is consistency. You can’t be jumping around. You can’t be jumping from an A game to a B game to a C game.”
So far, Polster has been on his A game. Even the weather’s warming up. The Fire last week picked up a defensive midfielder from Spain on loan, but the bloggers say he’s mostly insurance.
When Polster and I talked Friday, it was 49 degrees in Chicago. The high was supposed to be 61. Cooler by the lake, of course.
On Thursday, there were tornado warnings. Several twisters touched down near Rockford, Ill., and they got hit pretty hard in neighboring McHenry County, too.
But if you want to know how well his rookie MLS season has been going, when I asked Matt Polster if he had to take shelter from the storm, he said if there were sirens, he didn’t hear them.
Las Vegas Review-Journal sports columnist Ron Kantowski can be reached at rkantowski@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0352. Follow him on Twitter: @ronkantowski.