Tim Ream, Rafa Marquez and the blessedness of self-awareness

After Real Salt Lake sliced up, chewed on and spit out the Red Bulls back line in a 3-1 win in New Jersey, Marquez essentially said that he’s very good, his teammates aren’t and there isn’t much he can do about it. So there.

Think I’m kidding?

“I’m focusing on really performance at my highest level," Marquez told the New York Daily News through an interpreter. “That doesn’t mean that the whole backline can perform at that same level, so that’s a problem. I think this is a team game and unfortunately there isn't an equal level between my teammates and me.”

Well, have fun at the team barbecue this weekend, Rafa.

(Update: Hans Backe has suspended Marquez this weekend for the comments.)

I talked to Hans Backe and several of the Red Bulls a few nights ago. It’s impossible to get a good feel for the locker room with one fly-by visit, but things seemed OK. Luke Rodgers talked about the good spirit and the fight within the locker room. Backe said he didn’t agree with the criticism of Marquez, and that his technical ability is something the team needs.

Now, all this came after a huge win – so perhaps the elements were well arranged for an aura of hunky dory.

But I did find one conversation particularly instructional. It was with Tim Ream, and our conversation fell in stark (the starkest, perhaps) contrast to the comments Marquez would make four nights later.

Do read on …

This was something of a leading question. I’ve written several times that the Red Bulls center back seemed pinned down by the old sophomore slump. His terrible blunder on Wednesday wasn’t the first such hiccup this year. Plus, his overall defending just hasn’t been as reliable as in that fine 2010 rookie season.

I would have told Ream all this, too. I would have been honest in the question – the same way I had been honest in talking to Backe about Marquez, copping immediately to the fact that I have written some unflattering things about the Mexican international and an attitude that appears apathetic from a distance.

I would have done the same with Ream … but I didn’t have to.

“To be honest, I don’t think I’ve been good enough,” he said. “It’s been a tough year.”

Ream owned up immediately. He said some of the Red Bulls troubles this year came right down to him.

Then he talked about some of the reasons – but the conversation didn’t come across like someone offering excuses. It sounded like someone trying to understand why 2010 looked like X, but 2011 was unfolding as Y.

He talked about the lack of lineup consistency, and how he’s learning to cope with it. And he’s right about that. After all, back lines (and center back pairings in particular) are like dance partners; the more time they can share on the floor, the stronger the syncopation.

“But we train together all the time,” he told me, “so that’s not an excuse.”

He talked about being away with the national team and the complications that can present. And he talked about the learning curve, and that he was aware he still had lots of polishing ahead. He said he’s working every day to improve and iron out the kinks in his game.

There was a humble self-awareness bracketing the conversation.

Now, contrast that to Marquez. His performances have been sub-standard. His passing has been splotchy and his tracking has been inconsistent at best, abysmal at worst. And there’s no way around this: at Marquez’s inflated salary (he’s the league’s third-highest paid man) he simply must be more of a leader. He’s a World Cup veteran, for Pete’s sake.

The organization is paying him handsomely and deserves better.