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Franck Tayou doesn’t want to dwell on the circumstances that led to him joining the Milwaukee Wave.
His new teammates don’t particularly care.
All that matters is that the MASL’s all-time leading scorer is happier in his new indoor soccer home and one of the most storied franchises in the sport is happy to have a player who could make all the difference in a run toward an eighth title.
“I’m a student of the game,” Tayou said Wednesday after practice at the UW-Milwaukee Panther Arena. “Every time I play against a team, I make it a point to watch a few of their games, see what their patterns are, see what the style of play is.
“I think this team has a lot of talented players, a good mix of veteran and young players. And for me, coming in, it almost felt like I was a missing piece. I came in to complete the puzzle. That’s why it looks so seamless.”
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The Wave obtained Tayou from the St. Louis Ambush in a trade in February, a month after the four-time league MVP announced he was leaving the team.
The powerful, 34-year-old forward from Cameroon, nicknamed “The King” has scored nine goals with four assists in three games, matching about half the production he had in 14 games with his former team. Even with the time off, Tayou was tied for third in the league for goals (26) and tied for sixth in points (39) heading into the weekend.
Wave coach Giuliano Oliviero has Tayou on a line with Ian Bennett, who has historically been one of the league’s top scorers. Bennett, whose scoring has dropped off the past two seasons, has had a goal in each game since Tayou came on board.
The two have long respected each other’s talents and now get a chance to see the other work up close.
“We always had to watch him when we were playing,” Bennett said. “We always had to make sure we marked him honestly all the time; we doubled him sometimes.
“So now I feel like all the other teams are gonna have to do that, and then obviously with our other guys coming through, I think it’s just gonna be a good thing.”
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With games against the Baltimore Blast at 6:35 p.m. Friday and the Texas Outlaws at 4:05 p.m. Sunday at the UW-Milwaukee Panther Arena, the Wave sits at 11-7-2, tied for sixth in the standings in the 12-team league. Then there’s one more week in the regular season – a home-and-home Friday-Sunday series with St. Louis – and fourth place is within reach.
“Obviously, everything happens for a reason, and I believe in divine timing and I think the timing couldn’t have been better,” Tayou said. “We’re off to a good start; just a matter of building that chemistry closer to the playoffs, which is what we’re doing right now.”
With a decade of experience in the MASL, Tayou has played with or against most of his new teammates, and he’s not the sort of player who has ruffled opponents’ feathers. As chemistry experiments go, this one has yielded only positive reactions.
“We’re doing our best to play to his strengths, and he’s doing his best to understand the way we go about things,” Oliviero said. “Maybe he’s got to work a little bit harder defensively in Milwaukee, but offensively, we want him to be Franck.”
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Milwaukee Wave pairs MASL high scorers Franck Tayou, Ian Bennett
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