After 15 years, MLS legend Carroll calls it a career
Brian Carroll’s career has become synonymous with MLS longevity, a steady if unassuming presence to whom team success naturally flowed.
Thursday, the Union legend called time on that career.
The 36-year-old announced his retirement after 15 seasons that saw the slight but cerebral midfielder assemble a resume surpassed by few in league history. His assessment of that illustrious career followed a predictably self-effacing script.
“I think I have some athletic ability, thank goodness, but I’m not the fastest, the tallest or the strongest,” Carroll said after Union training. “What I brought was consistency, work ethic and fulfilling my role to the best of my ability, and me doing that enabled other guys to fulfill their roles and succeed at their roles.”
Carroll has been with the Union since 2011. He ranks second in club history in games played (165) and first in starts (156) and minutes (13,819). Carroll hasn’t played this season, the first time he’s been limited to fewer than 21 games since his rookie campaign, but manager Jim Curtin said the plan is to get Carroll into Sunday’s season finale against Orlando City (4 p.m., NBCSP+) for a proper sendoff.
“Having the opportunity to coach him here in Philadelphia and be around him and work with him has been a real honor for me, one that now you reflect back on his career and the trophies that he’s won and the caps he’s received for the U.S. national team, he’s a true professional,” Curtin said. “A guy that always played the game with a smile on his face but was also kind of a quiet killer on the field. I played against him several times as well and I can’t say enough about him not only on the field but also his beautiful family, how he is as a father. He’s an example as to how you would want his son to be.”
In 15 seasons with the Union, D.C. United and Columbus, Carroll is tied for fourth in games played in MLS history among field players at 370 (level with his brother-in-law, Chad Marshall of Seattle). Carroll is sixth in starts with 345, one behind Toronto’s Drew Moor. Add in goalies, and Carroll is tied for sixth in games and eighth in starts.
Carroll is sixth among MLS players in minutes played at 30,776. Staggeringly, he’s never been red carded. He holds the honor of the most career minutes without a red card. (Second is Landon Donovan at 28,898, but the forward had 119 yellow cards to Carroll’s 57.)
“Strategic yellow cards,” Carroll offered as the recipe. “If you approach the game the right way, you don’t worry about those things, and maybe I should’ve gotten one or two just to be able to look back on it and say that I did. Just trying to play the game hard and the right way.”
“If you watch a lot of tape on BC and having played against him, he’s not a guy who left his feet a ton so you never leave it in the referee’s hands because he always saw it early,” Curtin said. “He read the game so well, so he never had to go to that last-ditch resort. … He saw the game differently than most.”
Carroll has nine MLS goals and 17 assists. In seven Union seasons, Carroll scored five goals (including a career-high two in 2013) and three assists.
Carroll made the playoffs nine straight seasons from 2003-2011, the last with the Union, and contributed 23 starts to the Union’s 2016 playoff berth. He started 20 playoff games, winning MLS Cup in 2004 with D.C. (a team that included Union sporting director Earnie Stewart and in which Carroll assisted on Alecko Eskandarian’s goal in the final) and in 2008 with the Crew. Carroll lifted the Supporters’ Shield four straight years from 2006-09.
The native of Springfield, Va., was a secondround draft pick (11th overall) by D.C. in the 2003 SuperDraft. He was capped eight times by the U.S. from 2005-10.
Two of Carroll’s brothers, Jeff and Pat, played in MLS, the only set of three brothers in league history. Brian and Jeff were teammates for two seasons in D.C.
Carroll’s immediate plan is to relocate to Indianapolis to be closer to his wife’s family and become a financial planner. But Curtin made it clear that the door is always open to a return to the game.
“A guy that was a pioneer for the game in this country … ,” Curtin said. “I know he’s moving on to the financial world. I hope he’s not sitting in a cubicle, but if he is sitting in a cubicle, the door is open to him here.”
Few people in the MLS realm are at more than a degree of remove from Carroll — “Everybody has a Brian Carroll story, and they’re all positive,” is how Curtin framed it. Coming full circle with a teammateturned-boss like Stewart illustrates the scope of his career.
“In the Eastern Conference Final and then in the MLS Cup Final in 2004, seeing (Stewart) put a stogie in his mouth and celebrate with the boys was a photograph I’ll never forget in my mind,” Carroll said. “Just thankful that my career was able to span the years that it has and I was able to play with guys like Earnie but also with guys like Landon and some of the younger guys that are moving the game on forward. I’m happy to do my part in growing this league and was lucky to develop some great friendships, connections and memories over the years.”