Adu excited to play with Eskandarian

Deseret Morning News (Salt Lake City, Utah)
Saturday, May 26, 2007

By James Edward

Freddy Adu is adamant that Alecko Eskandarian will help downtrodden
Real Salt Lake.

"He’s tireless. He just runs all day, always giving options for
midfielders. He works hard, he tracks back, he scores goals out of
nowhere," said Adu. "I think it’s going to help this team out a
lot. I’m actually really excited to have him here."

Adu isn’t just blowing hot-air optimism either. Prior to each going
their separate ways at the end of the 2006 season, Adu and Eskandarian
were teammates at D.C. United for three years.

Eskandarian scored 20 goals during his four-year stint with D.C., and
the former No. 1 overall draft pick was named the MLS Cup MVP after
leading his club to the 2004 MLS Cup title.

Despite his productivity, D.C. United decided to head a different
direction at the end of last season and Eskandarian was shipped across
the border to expansion club Toronto FC. Two months into the 2007, he
was traded again, this time to Real Salt Lake in exchange for Jeff
Cunningham.

Eskandarian debuted with his new team during Friday’s training
session, which went exactly as RSL coach Jason Kreis had envisioned.

"I think the world of the guy, and I don’t even know him that well to
be honest, but the spirit that he brought to today’s training session
was excellent. The spirit just with meeting with me was excellent, and
we did some finishing at the end and it was second to none," said
Kreis.

For a team that’s scored just seven goals in seven games this year and
is still winless, Kreis would love to see some of that productivity in
action this Sunday when RSL visits the Chicago Fire.

Eskandarian admits there’s pressure associated with being traded to a
struggling franchise that expects you to help turn things around, but
at the same the New Jersey native says he thrives on pressure.

"I enjoy it. At the same time, Jeff (Cunningham) scored a lot of goals
here, those are some big shoes to fill, but I’m not looking at it that
way," said Eskandarian. "I’m not here to replace Jeff, I’m here to be
me and do whatever I can. The one thing I know I can help the team do
is win games."

His track record speaks for itself having been a key cog for
D.C. United, one of the winningest franchises in MLS.

CHANGING DIRECTIONS

Kreis continues to shake things up as Real Salt Lake’s head coach. On
Thursday he announced that he’d replaced goalkeeper coach Peter Mellor
with Jeff Cassar, a former teammate at Dallas.

"I like Peter a lot. I think he’s a class, class man. He’s been
around the game so long … he has a wealth of knowledge to offer
anyone," said Kreis. "At the end of the day I felt I needed to have
somebody that I have a great deal of comfort being around in my
staff."

Mellor was former RSL head coach John Ellinger’s assistant coach with
the Under-17 U.S. National Team before following Ellinger to Salt Lake
City to assist with RSL.

When Ellinger was fired earlier this month, some wondered how long
Mellor would stick around.

Cassar, 33, played in MLS for 11 years before retiring in January to
become FC Dallas’ goalkeeper coach. During that 11-year stretch,
Cassar had two stints with Dallas (1996-97 and 2003-06) in addition to
playing for Miami (1998-2001) and the MetroStars (2002). He started 76
matches during his MLS career, finishing with a record of 28-36-10.

E-mail: jedward@desnews.com

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From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress