New England Revolution New-Guy Report: Ryan Solle

By: Jeff | March 8th, 2007

Here, for the first time, I enter on the tricky ground of wondering why my team drafted a given player. This departure has less to do with the player himself than it does with how he fits into a team boasting several similar, and tested, players.

That’s not to say Ryan Solle doesn’t have anything to recommend him. As his profile on the New England Revolution’s official site points out, he stands as Wake Forest University’s second all-time assists leader. According to the same blurb, Solle counts as “one of the great set-up men in college soccer over the past four years,” something also suggested by his setting Wake’s single-season assist record as a junior in 2005. Even if his contributions in the assists column dropped off a bit in 2006 - he turned in only four “helpers,” but upped his goal-scoring five-fold, but scoring, um, five goals in the ‘06 campaign (2006 team stats appear here) - he was part of the team that took Wake Forest to the NCAA quaterfinals and played a personal role in taking it beyond (to the semis), for the first time in that school’s history. And, as pointed out nearly everywhere, he garnered both NCAA and ACC honors, including making the All-ACC first-team in 2006, all of which, taken together, is something other than shabby.

So, why am I so cool to this player? My answer comes in two parts: Justin Moose and an adjective frequently attached to Solle.

The word “blue-collar” appears in both the Wake and Revolution profiles. If this was anything like an under-valued quality on the Revs’ roster, I imagine I’d think more of Solle. But with Joe Franchino, Jeff Larentowicz, James Riley, and arguably even Daniel Hernandez and Shalrie Joseph already playing for the Revs, there’s so much “blue” on the Revs’ collars that we’re pushing into midnight, or perhaps even indigo, blue territory. Who knows? Maybe Revs’ Head Coach Steve Nicol has a quota on this sort of player and he’s wanting to lock up replacements before some of the veterans hobble off into retirement. Perhaps Solle’s “true playmaker’s skill and field vision” gives him an edge over Larentowicz or Riley - but that’s where DC United’s Justin Moose comes in.

Moose, for those who dont’ know, is Wake Forest’s all-time assist leader; there’s a straight-up reference to this somewhere, but I couldn’t find it and therefore tallied up the assist numbers in Moose’s MLSnet.com profile; sure enough, he’s got 29 assists to Solle’s 27. There’s something else you might notice on Moose’s profile: a lack of first-team playing time; moreover, his record in the reserves isn’t all that red-hot either. This is a killer because Moose seemed to enter the league better prepared the Solle; while attending Wake, he racked up some experience with the Carolina Dynamo of the Premier Development League and, judging from his profile, he did pretty well there. Against that, Solle does have some “extra-curricular” experience of his own: a stint with the United States U-23 National team, which is, no question, a higher level. Unfortunately, his experience appears to be limited to traveling with the team for this year’s training camp extension in Japan - though, even there, he got on the field for only 27 minutes over the two-game tour (on and off) and he’s no longer showing in the current U-23 player pool.

Being the kind of guy who wants to give a fella the benefit of the doubt, I’m feeling some guilt about using Solle as the foil for all my doubts about Nicol’s latest Superdraft strategy. He does sound like a fine player, but he also looks a little surplus to requirement. As I often say when I write something that feels like a hatchet job, I’d love for Solle to prove me wrong. So, get to it kid.

(NOTE: I’m waiting to hear back from someone in Wake Forest’s Soccer program, on both Solle and Wells Thompson, who also played with Wake. I’ll post that as soon as I get it.)