Wooten eager to improve after tough debut campaign
WILMINGTON, DEL. >> Even as he struggled last season, Andrew Wooten didn’t hide from reality. So with his slate cleaned this January, by coaching edict and by the simple passage of time, there was no reason to conceal it Tuesday.
“Of course I want to do better than last season,” the striker said at Union preseason training. “I know I didn’t come back in shape and I know I had a lot of catching up to do. I know I wasn’t fit at the time I came. Now I’m pretty excited to play a whole preseason and get into a position where I can start every game.”
Wooten is a goal-scorer; the conspicuous knock on his debut half-season in 2019 was that he didn’t do any of that. In four starts (seven matches) covering 352 regular-season minutes, Wooten accounted for one assist (a secondary, at that). He logged 70 minutes in the postseason with little impact, getting the start in the win against the Red Bulls but exiting before the Union tied the game and won in extra time.
Wooten scored 17 goals in 31 appearances in 2018-19 for 2.Bundesliga side SV Sandhausen before his deal wasn’t renewed. When the Union got him on a free transfer in June (he had to wait for the transfer window to open three weeks later to play), he was envisioned as the piece that would put a surging club over the top, compensating for the injuryplagued Sergio Santos and the visa-sidelined Cory Burke.
Instead, he had a goal wiped off in a loss at Real Salt Lake, played well in his first start, a 5-1 drubbing of D.C. United in which he played a key role in the opening goal … then nothing. A lot of work, sure, but no results on the field, no breakthrough to start the ball rolling.
Amid the frustration, though, were lessons he could carry into this year.
“I just think you really have to be in shape in this league,” the 30-year-old said. “It goes up and down. You need a lot of stamina and to just be prepared for the season and that’s what I’m doing right now. I can’t wait to get started.”
A silver lining in Wooten’s bumpy 2019 is its precedent. Plenty of players have struggled to adapt in their first season in MLS, particularly as midseason acquisitions. Add in that he was coming off 31 league games and nearly 2,500 minutes with Sandhausen, and the futility is more understandable. By the playoffs, Wooten had been in basically a 16-month-long, continuous season, with only a two-week hiatus in late May and early June before he started his preseason against teammates in midseason form.
If he needs evidence as to the benefits of a real preseason, he’s got ample evidence from strike partner Kacper Przybylko. The German-born Polish striker was signed by the Union in September 2018, and while he didn’t log any game time or get nearly as much training as Wooten did last year, he was familiar enough with the system to start 2019 strong, leading to 15 goals.
Wooten’s comfort offers a similar starting point.
“I’m talking with him every day,” Wooten said of Przybylko. “He keeps saying the same thing. He went through the same stuff that I did last year. I wish that I can score 15 goals this season. Hopefully that will happen.”
The Union last year endured some tactical growing pains, in an admitted transition year between Earnie Stewart’s possession-based system and Ernst Tanner’s counter-attacking style. It wasn’t an easy line for even veterans to toe, and the Union often defaulted to the old system in tight spots.
This year, the team has made personnel changes to double down on counterattacking soccer. It’s also sticking with its investment in Wooten.
“I know what the coach wants and I just have to do it,” he said. “I’m pretty optimistic that I will get my chance.”