- Slug: Sports-United Cortez,680
- Photo available (thumbnail, caption below)
By JOSEPH STEEN
Cronkite News
PEORIA — The final whistle had blown, defeat, exhaustion and disappointment showed on the players faces. Arizona United had been eliminated from the U.S. Open Cup, a knock-out cup competition that’s been on-going for over 100 years, on June 1. They had lost their third straight match and still had to play four of the best teams in the league over the following few weeks.
“We hit a wall,” Arizona United head coach Frank Yallop said. “We had three games in those two weeks and three poor results.”
Yallop took over the team as head coach and president of soccer operations in December. He is a two-time MLS champion with the San Jose Earthquakes and will look to get the team to the playoffs for the first time in the franchise’s three years in existence. However, in the first two months of the season, Arizona United managed only two wins in their first ten league games as they struggled to score goals.
“This team is brand new,” Yallop said. “A lot of guys that are not quite up to what we need and what we want, I think now we are starting to get it.”
The team had scored just seven goals in its first 10 matches and was left without one of its best forwards after Chris Cortez suffered a hamstring injury at the end of April.
Cortez’s injury kept him out for six weeks and the team struggled to find its form. They lost two and drew two games in the league and their only win during that six-week span came against Tucson FC in a U.S. Open Cup qualifier.
“We missed him,” Yallop said. “He’s a multiple position player. He can play up front, wide, underneath, he can play a lot of spots that helps him get into the team.”
Things changed for the better when Cortez returned to the field on June 15 against his old team, the Orange County Blues FC. Cortez scored the winning goal in a 2-0 win for United. It was Arizona United’s first win in the league since the beginning of April.
Since the return of Cortez, Arizona United’s offense has been much improved. They have scored 8 times in their last five games. Currently United is in 13th place in the United Soccer League’s Western Conference, but only four points out of the final playoff spot at the season’s halfway point.
“We needed Chris (Cortez) back, when he was out we struggled offensively, he just brings a target for the team,” United forward Tyler Blackwood said. “When he gets the ball he gets forward. As someone playing around him you know that you can gamble off him because he’s going to make something happen.”
Blackwood has benefited from the return of Cortez, scoring in three out of the last six matches for Arizona United. He made the United Soccer League team of the week for the week of June 28.
“When you’re on a bit of a streak you want to keep scoring, so you want to keep making runs, keep looking for those little areas,” Blackwood said. “To be fair the boys have been finding me a lot.”
Blackwood isn’t the only forward prospering. Long Tan has scored three goals in the past two games. Tan made last week’s USL team of the week.
“I think the ability for the three of us to be able to interchange and all be able all three sides is important,” Cortez said. “Our constant ability to move and be able to play in different positions, it’s tough for defenders to be to constantly pass us off and deal with marking us.”
Despite having good performances against some of the better teams, United’s run came to an end with a 3-2 loss to the last place Tulsa Roughnecks on July 1.
“It was a pretty disappointing letdown in Tulsa,” Yallop said. “But we’ve had four good results before it so things are feeling pretty good, we just have to continue to get them (results) and look forward to the next few games.”
