During my playing career I had the opportunity to play with and against many talented academy products across the world. The players that stand out from the training sessions I had include Erkan Zengin and Petter Andersson in Sweden for Hammarby, D.C.United’s Andy Najar and Bill Hamid, FC Sochaux’s Ivan Perisic, Cedric Bakambu, Marvin Martin and Ryad Boudebouz, and Philadelphia Union’s Brenden Aaronson and Mark McKenzie.
There were various traits they all had in common, mainly listening to the veteran players and having confidence. It’s in these instances where the young players hear about the many ways they can handle difficult situations while playing professionally, including falling out of favor with a coach, how to impress new coaches, dealing with bad form, contract conversations, terrible locker rooms, etc. These young players just wanted to play and listened to every word from veteran players and coaches.
In my first few training sessions in France, I remember Perisic playing in just about every position on the pitch. The coach asked him to play center back at times in small-sided games and he did it with a smile on his face. He ended up making a move to Belgium to play for Club Brugge and the rest was history.
Aaronson’s character and his determination to work for the group were impressive from the start. His movement and quick thinking allowed him to keep up with the first teamers at a very young age. Brenden would ask the older players where they liked the ball played and learned their tendencies, which always struck me because he was more interested in making the guys around him better than playing for himself.
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