Only two players have scored more goals and played in more games in the history of USA men’s soccer than Chicago Fire striker Brian McBride. What’s it like to play with the former two-time Player of the Season for Fulham of the English Premier League?
Northwestern senior Mark Blades knows. For the past two years, Blades has played with the Chicago Fire Premier Development League (PDL)-the Fire’s college-level amateur team-allowing him to train with the Fire’s first team, including McBride.
“He’s the best player I’ve ever played with,” Blades said. “He’s good, but he makes everyone around him better. Just takes your game to another level.”
Blades will play alongside NU striker Matt Eliason on the PDL team this summer. He earned a place in the 36-man Fire squad for the preseason as a trialist but wasn’t selected for the final 24 spots heading into the Major League Soccer season. Though Blades holds hopes of playing in the MLS, he said it isn’t likely at the moment.
“I’m planning on heading to Sweden after the World Cup to try to play there for a little while,” Blades said. “I have a scout over there who can get me some trials with some teams. Ideally, I would like to come back to MLS, but it doesn’t seem like that will happen for me right now, so I’m going to pursue other options while I can.”
Three players in NU history have been drafted by MLS teams: Brad Napper, David Roth and Brad North-all PDL alumni and all members of the NU All-Decade Team, along with Blades. NU coach Tim Lenahan pointed out that none of them played more than a year of professional soccer.
“In a lot of cases, as Northwestern graduates, they’re ready to get on with their lives, because there might not be that financial payoff,” Lenahan said. “I’m not sure that any of (the three) pursued it wholeheartedly. Each of them only played a year.”
Collegiate soccer is notoriously physical-an aspect critics argue isn’t conducive to developing other aspects of college players’ games, such as their technique. Of the 30 players looking to make the U.S. World Cup squad, half left college early. Nine-including U.S. captain Landon Donovan-never went to college.
“I don’t totally agree with (the critics),” said Blades, who will earn a degree in psychology next month. “I loved going to college, it was a great experience. Playing for Northwestern developed me, certainly, as a player. But there’s a certain sense that the college game is too physical and too oriented toward just athleticism than soccer skill, which a part of that is true.”
So what is the difference at the professional level?
“The pace of the game is much faster than it was here,” Blades said. “You just have to be cleaner with every touch and play faster. It’s not necessarily that everyone’s more athletic or anything.”
Physicality is an area of little concern for the 5-foot-6 Blades, who Lenahan compares to a pitbull, saying “what he doesn’t have in size, he has in toughness.” Blades said he models his game after Chelsea’s Michael Essien. The diminutive Ghanaian midfielder is known for his commitment to winning every ball and covering the entire field.
“I try to model my work ethic after him because he runs his *ss off the whole game,” Blades said. “Essien is very fast and very agile, and he knows how to use his body well. Being my size, I’ve learned how to utilize every inch I have because I’m short. I’ve developed my body to be strong and stable so I can body up against bigger guys and compete with them.”
Another similarity with Essien is Blades’ equal command over his team’s attacking and defensive play. During his career, Blades, who plays left back, led the Wildcats to 37 shutouts, scored seven goals-including a stunning long range shot against St. John’s in 2008-and produced eight assists.
“A lot of our play went through him, overlapping, getting a lot of assists, and scoring a lot of goals,” graduating senior and center back Pat Coleman said.
“We really shaped our attack around Mark being able to get forward from the left side,” Lenahan said.
The first two-time All-American in NU history, Blades holds the school record for consecutive starts at 85. In 2008, Blades was named Big Ten Co-Defensive Player of the Year, as he captained the team to the NCAA elite eight.
“He’s just such a good leader by example,” Coleman said. “He will never get outworked in practice or in a game. He would run through a brick wall for any other player on the team. Everybody sees that in him and how hard he’s working. He raises the level of everybody’s play.”
Just like the careers of the three NU graduates and MLS draftees, a career in professional soccer is not guaranteed for Blades. The one certainty is that he will give his all, just as he did during his NU career.
