FOXBOROUGH, Mass. – Scott Caldwell is smart. The kind of smart that earns an accounting degree from the University of Akron in just three-and-a-half years and maintains a near-perfect 3.94 grade point average in the process, all while captaining one of the top soccer programs in the country.
He’s also the kind of smart that plans for the future. Throughout the first two years of his burgeoning pro soccer career, Caldwell continued his studies. He’s already passed the four exams necessary to become a Certified Public Accountant, and now needs only internship experience to earn an official CPA title.
But because Caldwell passed his exams with a certain amount of credits, there’s no timetable for when he needs to complete his internship. So for now, accounting can wait. It’s all about soccer.
There’s a strong connection, it seems, between the intelligence Caldwell displays in the classroom and the way he plays on the field. Every pass he makes is calculated. Every decision is precise.
As a deep-lying midfielder tasked with providing a link between defense and attack, Caldwell’s top priority is often avoiding mistakes. A large percentage of his passes are of the simple side-to-side variety, designed to pull the opposition out of shape and open gaps for his teammates to exploit.
“It’s just holding onto the ball and making the other team move,” said Caldwell. “The more you make them move, the quicker you make them move, the more holes there will be to open up for guys like Lee (Nguyen), Daigo (Kobayashi) and our whole attack. It’s really just side to side, occasionally probing passes that’ll help them move and maintain possession, as well.”
“His passing efficiency is always high, so he’s keeping the ball for our team,” said head coach Jay Heaps. “He’s also critical in winning it back, so what he gives us is extended periods of the ball. When we don’t have the ball, he’s plugging holes and reading defenses and trying to create turnovers.”
In short, Caldwell is a lynchpin. He’s an offensive orchestrator, making the simple passes which create opportunities for his teammates to get forward. He’s a defensive stalwart, shielding the backline by positioning himself in a way that he can kill the opposition attack before it ever develops.
What he’s not, by his own admission, is flashy. He’s not skinning defenders on the dribble. He’s not scoring highlight-reel goals. He’s rarely the one to play the killer pass to unlock a defense.
Instead, he’s doing everything critical to winning games, but which rarely receives plaudits.
“I think it’s the position,” teammate Andrew Farrell said when asked why Caldwell’s name doesn’t pop up on lists like MLSSoccer.com’s popular 24 Under 24. “It’s a position where he literally does all the dirty work for us. He makes the center back’s job a lot easier. He makes everybody’s job easier.
“I think what goes unnoticed is Scotty and how he plays the game simple. Soccer is such a simple game. Obviously you have ‘flare’ guys, but it’s hard to find a guy like Scotty who just does his job every time.”
Sometimes that job isn’t limited to making smart passes and forcing turnovers. Sometimes it involves picking up yellow cards, something Caldwell did six times last season. But even then, it was always with a purpose, making a smart tactical foul to slow an attack, knowing full well the consequences.
“If they’re taking advantage of a counterattack and I have to do it, I will,” Caldwell said. “It’s not something you want to do, but if you have to do it, you have to do it.”
It’s that type of attitude which makes Caldwell, as Heaps said last year, “a coach’s dream.” While the national media may overlook Caldwell’s contributions, that’s never the case with Heaps, who’s always filled with confidence when he writes the 23-year-old Homegrown midfielder’s name on the team sheet.
“There isn’t a player who puts more into his preparation for games, his preparation for training, taking care of himself and I think it all shows,” Heaps said. “Scotty’s a winner. Since we signed him, we have more wins than losses. Every time he steps on the field, we feel that we have a good chance of winning.”
And winning is where Caldwell’s focus is trained. Asked about his own under-the-radar contributions, Caldwell simply pointed to the team’s success, and how that helped pave the way for Nguyen’s return to the U.S. National Team picture.
“I’m not too worried about it,” Caldwell said of being underappreciated at the national level. “As long as we’ve got guys who are getting called up to the national team, it shows that our team’s getting noticed and we’re winning games. That’s the main purpose of the whole thing.”
