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Crooks: Red Bulls' Kljestan Has Taken An Unconventional Route To Top Of U.S. Soccer

By Glenn Crooks
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It's not often that a kid from southern California, playing youth soccer year-round outdoors at the highest level, would then choose to move to the East Coast for his college experience.

Paul Caligiuri (UCLA), Cobi Jones (UCLA), Eric Wynalda (San Diego State), Marcelo Balboa (San Diego State), Chad Marshall (Stanford), Nick Romando (UCLA), Chris Wondolowski (Chico State), Gyasi Zardes (Cal State Bakersfield), Sal Zizzo (UCLA) and MLS Player of the Month, Benny Feilhaber (UCLA) are a few examples of SoCal boys who stayed home for school and became professional players. Maurice Edu and Robbie Rogers are illustrations of the exception, but their decision to attend Final Four regular, Maryland could be justified to their peers.

Manfred Schellscheidt, at the time on the Region 1 staff for the Olympic Development Program and the head coach at Seton Hall in South Orange, New Jersey, took notice of a skinny, lanky kid playing against his side at a 2003 national event in San Diego.

"It was a tournament with the four regional teams and the U-17 National Team," explained Schellscheidt. "They needed a sixth team so they invited the Southern California State Team."

Billy McNicol, a former professional player for Glasgow Rangers, was the head coach of the Cal South group. He had previously managed the U-16 and U-18 Youth National Teams and worked with future standouts Demarcus Beasley, Steve Cherundolo, Carlos Bocanegra and Chris Albright.

He had a player on this state team that went undetected by the power college programs in California, yet Sacha Kljestan has enjoyed a professional career that has far exceeded his ODP teammates.

"I was what you would call a late bloomer," Kljestan said after a recent training session with his current side, the New York Red Bulls. "I was not fully developed athletically, but I always had soccer ideas and Manny recognized that. The other coaches only saw the physical side."

"Billy (McNicol) was a friend of mine and I asked him about Sacha," said Schellscheidt, the 24-year mentor at Seton Hall. "He said no one had shown much interest. I said, 'you've got to be kidding.'"

"It was fate that Manfred and I ran into each other," added Kljestan, who has earned 46 caps for the U.S. National Team. "I didn't have very many good options. I'm thankful that Manny saw something in me."

To understand the philosophy of Schellscheidt, a member of the National Soccer Hall of Fame, you discern promptly that a required trait in his players is a "soccer brain."

"When I'm looking at guys, I'm not looking to see if they are 6-foot-2 or how fast they can run," he said. "I want to see if he can play, does he affect the team. It was his influence on the rest of the guys that impressed me the most."

Schellscheidt said he enjoyed recalling Kljestan's final year at the Hall, the fall of 2005, when the Huntington Beach native influenced his teammates with a school record 15 assists to go along with nine goals.

"We had a flank player that was in his third year and he had goals and assists," Schellscheidt said.

Justin McGrath had six goals and four assists with three game-winning scores in Kljestan's final year.  The following season, McGrath play in all 18 matches and took 22 shots. He completed his senior season with no goals and no assists.

"It just shows you the impact Sacha had, moving the ball around," said Schellscheidt, who said he speaks frequently with Kljestan after Red Bull games.

"I see Manny every other day, he'll check out our training," said Kljestan. "Whenever you speak to Manfred you come off with a little more soccer knowledge than before you talked to him."

"It's very enjoyable for me to speak to someone who knows the game," said Schellscheidt, who assists with the U-12s, 13s and 14s at the Red Bull Academy. "You can have a soccer talk with Sacha – a good, enjoyable one."

Kljestan desired to play nice "football" with an emphasis on good attacking ideas. He made that discovery at Seton Hall and credits his soccer maturity to the atmosphere created by Schellscheidt.

"For me, Seton Hall was the perfect environment," said Kljestan. "Manny helped me grow in confidence and develop good attacking ideas. In college soccer, you don't see that a lot. There are a lot of bruisers out there."

"I was lucky to have very good coaches, renowned coaches," said Schellscheidt, who arrived in the states from his native Germany in the late 1960s. "I don't remember everything they said, but I do remember that I was excited to be at training every day. It was the environment they created."

Kljestan was initially jealous of his mates on the West Coast. They were committing to nationally prominent programs like UCLA, Cal-Berkley, Stanford and Loyola Marymount.

"You can look at other sports and a guy like Steph Curry, who went to a smaller school (Davidson)," Kljestan said of the NBA's newly minted Most Valuable Player. "He shined there, developed – he was also a bit of a late bloomer. Sometimes it's better to be the big fish in a small pond."

After he was named the conference Offensive Player of the Year while earning Big East academic honors, Kljestan was selected fifth overall in the MLS Super Draft by Bob Bradley and Chivas USA. He was an MLS All-Star by 2008 before signing a four-year deal with Anderlecht in the Belgian first division. In January, he agreed to a transfer back to New Jersey.

"I'm not from here but feel like a local," he said. "I feel like I've been here all my life even though I'm a California boy."

With RBNY, he is re-united with his former teammate at Chivas and the current Red Bulls coach, Jesse Marsch.

"He was so easy to play with," Marsch said, referring to his four-year stint with Kljestan. "Guys love playing with guys that are easy to play with and make them better. It seems so easy for him."

Kljestan scored his second goal of the season in the defeat at New England on Saturday – the Red Bulls' first loss of the season.

Throw-Ins

- The much-anticipated derby between NYRB (3-1-4) and NYCFC (1-5-3) is this Sunday at Red Bull Arena. Marsch said he circled the Galaxy game on the calendar when he was a player at Chivas and it was no different for him as a coach.

"When the schedule came out, this is the first date I looked at," said Marsch. "It has the potential to be nasty. This is what derbys are like."

I'll have a preview and prediction later in the week.

- Last week, the NY Times reported that NYCFC and Columbia University had a conversation about the possibility of converting the Ivy League college's football stadium into a permanent home facility for the club. The only thing I can confirm is that David Villa worked out at Columbia last fall and that ground has been broken on the previously planned renovation of Robert K. Kraft Field at Lawrence A. Wien Stadium.

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