Richie Marquez a diamond in the rough for Philadelphia Union
Feb 19, 2014; Lake Buena Vista, FL, USA; The Philadelphia Union is bathed in a sunset before facing Orlando City SC at ESPN Wide World of Sports. Mandatory Credit: David Manning-USA TODAY Sports
Center back Richie Marquez’s stock has increased during the Philadelphia Union’s preseason campaign and has beaten out two other players for the position. Now Marquez is close to joining the first team and making his dream come true playing in MLS.
Center backs Kevin Cope and Robbie Derschang, both rookies, were cut from the team this week, allowing Marquez, a graduate of Redlands—a Division III school— to inch closer to making the team.
“Let me just say that Richie has been one of the biggest surprises in camp,” Hackworth told MLSSoccer.com’s Dave Zeitlin. “He is a young player that not a lot of people knew about coming from a D-III program.
“At Redlands, he played for Ralph Perez, who is a good friend of mine and a little bit of a mentor. He gave us the heads up that he really thought Richie had potential and so far we have absolutely seen that. He has good size. He’s got excellent speed. He is strong. And he plays pretty simple.
“Kevin, we really liked in our scouting, but we knew that we were not going to be able to keep both Richie and Kevin And the reality is that Richie had a better part of the preseason than Kevin did.
“Again, we are pleased with the guys that are in camp. But in reality, is that exactly where we want to be? No. We are trying to find that person and we are looking very hard. But we are not going to make that move unless it’s the right player.”
As for the rest of the team, Hackworth is confident that the pieces are falling together.
“We actually played four [exhibition] games [in Florida] so far and we’ve been progressive, I think we’ve seen some of the work [in these matches] that we’re doing [on the training ground],” Hackworth told philadelphiaunion.com’s Andy Jasner. “In specifically, I would say our ball movement and our ball circulation has been much better both against [the Union’s last two preseason matches against [Red Bull New York and Orlando City FC].
“Our organized pressure, we’re pressing those two teams at least in these games, pretty high up the field and that for the most part was pretty good. In both games we were successful in locking those teams in their own half for a while and sustaining that.
“We have some guys that are here that we feel that can do the job, but that is an area we feel we need to upgrade in. Long term, I feel really confident about the season because we have a group of guys retuning that were building something, they know what we did last year was good, but was not good enough and they have that desire to come in and make sure we have a better season this year than we did last.”
The Union drew 1-1 with Orlando City SC in the Walt Disney Pro Soccer Classic on Wednesday and will take on the Columbus Crew today at 1 p.m. ET at Disney’s Wide World of Sports Complex in Orlando, Fla.
BOX SCORE
Philadelphia Union 1, Orlando City SC 1
Wednesday, Feb. 19; 6:00 p.m. ET
ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex
Orlando, Fla.
SCORING SUMMARY
ORL: Hertzog 32’
PHI: Fernandes 73’ (Ribeiro)
UNION STARTING 11
Zac MacMath, Fabinho, Amobi Okugo, Sheanon Williams, Ray Gaddis, Brian Carroll, Maurice Edu, Vincent Nogueira, Cristian Maidana, Jack McInerney, Sebastien Le Toux.
(63rd minute substitutions)
Andre Blake, Cristhian Hernandez, Ethan White, Aaron Wheeler, Matt Kassel, Aodhan Quinn, Leo Fernandes, Fred, Danny Cruz, Pedro Ribeiro, Zach Pfeffer.