With his goal against Seattle last weekend, Mark Anthony Gonzalez became the USL’s leading rookie goal scorer for 2016. His goal in the 88th minute in Sunday’s 2-0 victory against Seattle Sounders FC 2 brought his goal count to five in June, which was the most goals scored by an individual player that month.
“It feels very good to be the leading goal scorer, especially since I started scoring late,” Gonzalez said.
SPR head coach Marc Dos Santos was reflective on the forward’s growth and development from preseason to now, “He was one of the biggest surprises when it comes to development of a soccer player.”
“When Mark arrived he was lacking the soccer rhythm and everything related to the specific training style in soccer. He had time off before our preseason started, so the first few weeks he seemed slow in everything he did, late in everything he did, and seemed to have a huge lack of confidence.”
Despite a slow start to life with the Rangers, the coaching staff was able to watch the Toronto native grow.
“Training by training we saw him growing in different phases. Every time he would come into a game he would create problems and go after the opponent. He would open it up for himself and create goal-scoring opportunities and slowly confidence came with that. When confidence comes, especially with forwards, they start growing a lot with their quality and Mark is a great example of that.”
The forward suffered a thigh injury during preseason that caused him to miss several games during the early stages of the season.
“When he arrived at preseason he wasn’t at the soccer fitness level he needed to be because of the lack of training opportunities due to weather in Toronto and then he suffered a severe injury late the preseason. When you put those two items together it’s a major setback. His progression wasn’t night and day, it was training by training. He always stayed positive even when we were hard on him. It had to be mentally tough to endure everything we were throwing at him. Today we are very happy to see his growth and his contribution to the team.”
Gonzalez took a positive approach to his injury, focusing his energy on improving his conditioning when he could.
“When I was injured I was doing a lot of training with the staff and getting my shape up. After missing a couple of games at the start of the season, when I did start to play I thought to myself that I needed to step it up and make up for the games that I missed.”
Saturday’s game will be Gonzalez’s first time facing Saint Louis FC, having missed the first-ever meeting between the sides on May 7 through that injury. “I missed the last game and we lost 3-0, I’m ready to go in and hopefully produce a couple of goals for the team.”
Gonzalez has been a thorn in many sides of late, and Dos Santos doesn’t think Saturday’s game will be any different.
“I think they will be hard on him like we are going to be hard on Irvin Herrera. I think that they have a very good forward like we have Mark and Dane Kelly, but I think this team doesn’t depend on one player. To have Mark and Dane Kelly gives us a lot of possibilities, so I think Saint Louis shouldn’t expect only a dangerous Mark Anthony.”
That game against Saint Louis FC will take place on Saturday, July 2 at Swope Soccer Village, with kickoff set for 7:30 p.m. CT. A live stream will be available on SportingKC.com, while tickets are available here.
