New target man Pablo Campos acknowledged after his first day of training with RSL that things weren't quite going his way with the San Jose Earthquakes, even though he'd scored twice and assisted twice for them this season.

“Probably, I think it was the system that didn't help,” he said.

But now, he figures that playing at the top of RSL's 4-4-3 formation with all-star midfielder Javier Morales behind him will better suit his style. “I need a playmaker, a guy to play underneath me,” he said. “Here, we play the 4-3-3, so we have the triangle in the middle so the guy's going to play underneath me so he can serve the ball. That's how I know how to play.”

Former coach Frank Yallop at San Jose certainly didn't dispute that.

“Pablo has done fine for us,” Yallop said. “But we're going to need the roster spots” in a rebuilding effort. “He's a lovely kid. But he's going to a place that really wants him, and I wasn't sure Pablo was the right fit for what we're trying to do.”

Incidentally, the strangest moment of Campos' introduction came when he was asked why he did not continue playing in Sweden after last season. His answer? Too cold, bleak and depressing. To illustrate his point, he noted the country's suicide rate (which actually ranks 30th globally, according to the World Health Organization, only modestly higher than the United States).

Campos said that many Swedes -- particularly the elderly -- take their own lives during the depressing winter months, only to be discovered “a month later, when it starts to smell,” he said. “When it starts smelling, the apartments, people come -- the government comes and takes out the body. It's crazy.”