His name is Andres Menendez but Sean Fitzpatrick calls him “Elmer.”
Huh?
“Elmer, because of the glue,” Menendez said cheerfully.
Again. . .huh?
“He is the absolute glue to our team,” Fitzpatrick said. “When everyone starts going every which way, he’s the guy who’s like ‘What are we doing here? Let’s get it together.’”
OK, now it makes sense. Especially to Menendez, the center midfielder on Nottingham High’s boys’ soccer team.
“I would consider myself the glue to the team,” he said. “I’m always everywhere on the field.”
It wasn’t always that way for the senior. When he first started playing academy soccer at age 7 for MLSA, and when he moved on to PDA, they played Menendez at outside back. He did get pushed up to the middle on occasion, and played enough to have confidence in himself.
“I switched roles for Nottingham because I knew I could bring good stuff to the midfield,” he said. “Playing defense was really my favorite thing. I am a true defender but I also love playing in the middle. I think I’m a better defender but I still think I’m good at both.”
Through Nottingham’s first seven games, Menendez had neither a goal or an assist and yet Fitzpatrick had nothing but praise for his value. He plays around 70 minutes each game, listens to advice and – as a tri-captain along with Herb Addo and Lester Bracero – takes his leadership role seriously.
“He’s fully bought in,” Fitzpatrick said. “I’ve talked to him about some things. He’ll ask questions. When you talk to him after a game and say ‘You gotta do this,’ he’s the first to be like ‘Man I know, I was bad with this, I gotta get better with that.’
“If there are kids arguing, he seems to be the guy who settles everyone in. He’s not a real talkative kid but he’s got that presence about him. If you’re gonna turn things around you’re gonna need kids like that. ”
Nottingham was 1-5 when Fitzpatrick talked about turning things around, but it was deceiving as all five losses were by 2-1 scores and three were in overtime. The Stars won their next game and were hoping that could ignite them.
“It’s pretty frustrating,” Menendez said. “We’re not living up to expectations. We need to be more clinical up top. It’s small mistakes we’ve been making that have been affecting us.”
Any success Nottingham has will feature Menendez as a centerpiece despite his lack of statistics. Early in the season he was playing mostly as a defensive midfielder, but was still figuring in the offense in ways that didn’t show up on the scoresheet.
“He can be a distributor who generates goals for us with the hockey assists,” Fitzpatrick said, noting how two assists are often awarded on ice hockey goals. “He could lead the county in that, but there is no such thing as the hockey assist in soccer, so that goes unnoticed.
“But he’s the guy who makes that pass to someone on the outside, they cross the ball and another guy scores. One guy gets the assist, one guy gets the goal and no one notices that he got the hockey assist.”
Menendez did score two goals last year to go along with an assist, but he’s not out for back-of-the-net glory.
“I’d rather have an assist than a goal,” he said. “I’d rather help my forwards and let them shine.”
Upon arriving at Nottingham, Menendez was placed on the JV team, but moved up to varsity midway through his freshman season. When Nick Durante took over as head coach in 2023, Menendez started at center back as a sophomore and went to midfield last year “because we lost a lot of midfield guys.”
Durante says of the player: “He’s a leader on the field. He leads by example.”
It was not a difficult adjustment switching positions, since Menendez had played some midfield in academy soccer. But he has continued to ply his trade.
“It’s something I try to work on in practice a lot and I think every day I’m improving,” he said. “Apart from being a defensive mid, he’s trying to get me to create chances and that’s what I’m doing.”
“Everything we try and do to generate offense through defense he’s bought into,” Fitzpatrick said. “It’s a new system, some new concepts and things they never heard about or talked about.”
Which is kind of the norm for Nottingham’s seniors, who are playing for their third head coach in four years. But despite what Fitzpatrick said, Menendez does not feel it’s a difficult transition, since he was the freshman coach last year.
“We always had Fitz alongside us at our games and at practices,” Menendez said. “They all have a very similar philosophy. It’s not too hard to adapt to their systems.”
Ironically, as much as Fitzpatrick raves about his midfielder this year, he flew under the coach’s radar last season.
“I really didn’t take notice of him because he’s one of those kids who’s just solid out there, he takes care of his area,” Fitzpatrick said. “This year as a head coach I’m like, ‘Man, how did I miss this guy last year?’
“He’s got a real nice touch; he’s got nice vision. He’s got good speed, soft feet, he’s a good distributor. He wins balls in 50-50 situations. He stands up his man defensively and doesn’t chase after the ball. He’s a competitor, he plays hard the whole game. He doesn’t ask to come out and doesn’t make excuses when things go wrong.”
About the only fault — if it can be called that — is that Menendez has been a little cautious.
“The one thing we try to get him to do is be a little more aggressive and take some more chances,” Fitzpatrick said. “That’s something he’s starting to embrace. ‘You don’t have to pass it; you can shoot it. You don’t have to play that back, take someone on here.’”
Menendez loves his role as captain, saying, “It’s amazing to lead the younger guys on our team.” He also loves instructing the flow of play from the midfield.
“Playing this position you need to be sharp and know what’s going on on the pitch,” he said. “I feel I’m pretty good at instructing guys out there.”
That’s what comes from having a love of the game.
“I watch soccer all the time,” Menendez said. “On my free time that’s all I do. I don’t watch any shows or anything like that. I’m strictly watching soccer. I literally don’t watch any other sport except soccer.”
And he never stops kicking the ball around.
“I’m always out there playing when I’m not with Nottingham,” he continued. “I’m either at the gym or outside getting my touches in or playing with other people.”
Menendez does, however, have another interest. With a 3.0 GPA, he’s looking into a career as a dental hygienist.
“I get compliments all the time about my teeth,” he said proudly. “I have a really good dentist, Dr. Mark Greco. His kid used to play in my MLSA academy when I was younger. He’s a really good dentist and we talk about soccer and stuff like that. He convinced me to get into that type of industry.
“I know some of my friends are scared of needles and sharp things so it will be hard to get them over there with me,” he added with a laugh. “But I’m only supposed to clean and that kind of stuff. The scary stuff is for the dentist.”
It’s only fitting that Menendez pursues a profession that provides glue for the teeth, considering he is the glue to the Northstars.
