Player Spotlight
Alfredo Morales Is Pushing For Promotion, Gold Cup
Alfredo Morales, 24, understood that in 2013 when he made the bold decision to leave Hertha Berlin, where he had played since he was 10-years-old, following the club's 2013 promotion to the Bundesliga. Rather than moving up with Hertha, Morales instead signed with Ingolstadt which had been coming of a modest 13th-place finish in the 2.Bundesliga.
Nearly two years later, the move has worked out incredibly well. With four games remaining in the season, Ingolstadt is closing in on promotion to the Bundesliga for the first time in club history. It currently has a five-point lead on second-place Kaiserslautern and a seven-point lead on Karlsruhe.
For Morales, the move was about growing up.
“I wanted to leave Hertha Berlin because I was there for almost 13 years,” Morales said. “I was always a little kid there. Everybody always said I was a good guy or a good player but sometimes you have to move on and take one step back to move forward. It was a difficult choice for me but I did it and I believed in myself. Everything has happened like wanted it to.
"Now I’m very happy.”
Morales, a fringe player with Hertha Berlin when it was promoted, appeared at times to be on verge of getting regular minutes. But Morales didn't want to be a role player on the big club—he wanted to be a team leader.
Morales' move surprised U.S. national team head coach Jurgen Klinsmann who didn’t initially agree with Morales’ decision to stay in Germany's second tier. But the coach is now an admirer of the maturity behind the choice.
"Alfredo left [Hertha] and he was one of the highest-rated kids in their development program—their U-19 and U-23,” Klinsmann said last month. “Then suddenly he goes to Ingolstadt. I called him, ‘What are you doing?’ [He said:] ‘Well, I don’t feel like I am getting that support because I am kind of a homegrown and I am not getting the appreciation. I gotta do it differently. I am going to go down to division two and prove myself.' I thought to myself, ‘Holy moly, you’re at Hertha Berlin already.’
“Now, he’s taking them up to the first league,” Klinsmann added. “In almost every game, he’s among the top three players when I talk to people there."
What sold Ingolstadt on Morales was the club’s long-term plan to make it to the Bundesliga and stay there. The club does not have a long history. It was founded just 10 years ago when two lower-tier clubs decided to merge. The new Ingolstadt club began play in the fifth-tier Oberliga in 2004 and quickly climbed the ranks with a series of promotions.
The club also developed a sponsorship deal with Audi—a deal that made sense since the automobile company’s headquarters is in Ingolstadt. A new stadium, the Audi Sportspark, was completed in 2010 and the club has since developed an impressive youth academy, training fields, and player facilities.
When Morales decided to move on from Hertha, he immediately saw Ingolstadt was a team heading in the right direction. He just didn’t expect success to come so soon.
“When I talked to the club for the first time, I noticed they had a plan,” Morales recalled. “Everything was set for them to go to the Bundesliga but not in the next two years or five years—maybe later. But they have a very good plan.
"Maybe we can do it and write history. We will see after this season.”
Beyond possible promotion, Morales has taken an expanded role with the U.S. national. His time in the U.S. system dates back to 2008 when he was first called up by U.S. U-20 head coach Thomas Rongen for a camp in Portugal.
At the time, international soccer was the furthest thing from the 17-year-old Morales' mind but he was honored and accepted. During camp he met players like Brek Shea and Mix Diskerud, who was also appearing for the U.S. for the first time. All three remain friends, and the fact that Morales is teammates with those two on the first team is something that he finds particularly rewarding.
Rongen, 58, now head coach of the Tampa Bay Rowdies in the NASL, has helped lure many international players into the U.S. program. In addition to Morales and Diskerud, the U.S. national team careers of John Brooks, Terrence Boyd, and Jerome Kiesewetter all began with a call from Rongen.
The Dutch-born coach recalls Morales being a quality player despite being the youngest on the roster for that trip to Portugal. The thing that struck Rongen the most about Morales then is the characteristic Morales is demonstrating now in Ingolstadt: leadership.
“I spoke with Alfredo’s father because those are big decisions for players,” Rongen said. “I wanted to make sure they were doing this for all the right reasons—that they would be proud representing the United States and that it wouldn’t just be an easy way to get a cap and represent one country because they couldn’t represent another country.”
“It was clear in conversations with Alfredo that he was a player with tremendous drive and desire,” Rongen added. “He had certain qualities in the positions he played. I saw that he was a player who could play at a higher level and a player that could lead his team somewhere.”
After that initial camp, Morales said that his mind was made up and that playing for the United States was his first choice—ahead of his native Germany and (more realistically) Peru. He has always been close with his father who took him during his childhood to visit his aunts and uncles in Miami and Washington, DC.
Morales inherited his passion for soccer from his father, a native of Peru who moved to the United States, became a U.S. citizen, and later served in the U.S. Army.
“Where I grew it wasn’t very nice,” Morales said. “Everything was very hard for my parents. After school I went out with my friends and just played soccer on the streets, parks, parking lots—everywhere. My Dad, he loved soccer but didn’t play professionally. He didn’t force me but he pushed me in that direction. As a son, you want to do what your Dad is doing.
"One day a coach from Hertha Berlin called and wanted me join there. At 10-years-old, you don’t think about playing professionally but I joined and it was the right decision.”
It appears that Morales made the correct call twice—signing for Hertha Berlin at a young age and then leaving the club to make a name for himself at Ingolstadt.
And for his next big move?
Morales hope it happens this summer at the 2015 Gold Cup. If Morales makes the squad, it will be his first major tournament with the United States national team.
“In the last few months I’ve received a lot of respect from the guys as a person and as a soccer player," Morales said. "I hope I make the Gold Cup roster. I want to show the people in the USA that I can play.
"I’ve played almost all my games in Europe," he added. "This is a totally different stage where you can present yourself. I want to show everyone that I am a part of the team.”
Brian Sciaretta is an American Soccer Now columnist and an ASN 100 panelist. Follow him on Twitter.
