Re: Eugene Starikov at Zenit St Petersburg Tom Tomsk is the easternmost club in the RPL, but it is in Tomsk. Omsk is another Siberian city that's located a bit to the west. Tomsk is actually quite close to Novosibirsk, which is the third-largest city in Russia. I agree -- there are tons of Generic Youth Player @ Somewhat Interesting Club threads in YA. Many of these guys disappear, so it's nice to see when they do get up to the professional level. He's an Amercan and it's unclear if he's even a dual national. If he performs for Tomsk this season it's hard to imagine he won't grab the USSF's attention. It would be nice to add RPL-based players to the January camp mix.
Re: Eugene Starikov at Zenit St Petersburg what is the schedule like of the rpl anyways? is it like the scandinavian leagues where they have a big break in the winter for weather reasons?
Re: Eugene Starikov at Zenit St Petersburg I know it's kinda odd. Just a simple search reveals he was a fairly touted recruit out of South Florida. He settled on modest Stetson but played very well there. All Conference player as a Freshman, numerous Player of the Weeks, etc. The Atlantic Sun Conference is a good, solid conference that I believe has produced a number of pros. Eugene probably wasn't an unknown per se. But best I can tell is that he was an above average player, a nice D-I prospect who really upped his game in his short time at Stetson. Nonetheless, strike me as interested in Eugene. Maybe he can progress like Alejandro Bedoya. Maybe he can be hit the ground running at Tom Tomsk. I hope so. It would great if our pals at Y-A.com produced a little story.
Re: Eugene Starikov at Zenit St Petersburg Basically MLS schedule. Which we all know is unacceptable to FIFA.
Re: Eugene Starikov at Zenit St Petersburg His profile on the Tom' website (in Russian): http://www.football.tomsk.ru/index.php?option=com_players&task=playerinfo&id=116 The 'biography' says (translated): "I was born in Odessa, and as a child moved with my parents to the USA. When I was six, my father brought me to a soccer academy. Before coming to Zenit, I played one year in college. I didn't play in the clubs of MLS. In 2009 I played for the Zenit youth team."
Re: Eugene Starikov at Zenit St Petersburg yea I didn't want people to get too carried away, you know how BS can be
Re: Eugene Starikov at Zenit St Petersburg Ehh...10%, at best, methinks. He did play pretty well for Zenit's champion youth team, after getting off to a rough start with an extended absence due to injury. He really had to fight for time with two other forward phenoms marked for bigger and better things, Pavel Ignatovich and Maxim Kanunnikov (Kanunnikov has now moved up to the big club, was on the bench for today's season opener.) But he did OK. I guess I was a little surprised to see Zenit loan him out instead of letting him go via outright transfer or a free, so maybe they see a little more in the kid than I thought. He should get some time at Tomsk, although he's probably at best third choice between the Belarusian national Sergei Kornilenko (another player on loan from Zenit) and the Macedonian national Maznov Goran...Tomsk has some other young Korean kid from Suwon Blue Wings, dunno much about him. He was supposed to have his Russian passport months ago...but the RPFL website still lists him as American.
Re: Eugene Starikov at Zenit St Petersburg Maybe we should change the thread name? I guess I'll put this in result tags since there is no (R): [result]Tom' Tomsk beat Rostov today 0-2 in their first game. Eugene didn't make the squad but Kornilenko, another player on loan from Zenit, scored both goals. Kornilenko and Maznov started up top, with Maznov being replaced by Kovalchuk, a nominal midfielder.[/result]
Re: Eugene Starikov at Zenit St Petersburg Because he isn't good enough or because someone will cap him before the US?
Re: Eugene Starikov at Zenit St Petersburg At this point, I don't think he's even a blip on the radar for either the Russian NT (provided his passport comes thru) or the Ukrainian NT. All he's shown to this point is that he was a decent rotational player on a domestic league youth squad. He's a long ways away from being in any conversation about any country, be it the US, Russia or Ukraine, capping him.
Re: Eugene Starikov at Zenit St Petersburg That's what I thought. Neither Russia nor Ukraine has a Camp Cupcake. The US, on the other hand ...
All this kid needs to do is to bag a few goals and it'll have people paying attention. Some American kids have a transitional phase between college soccer and professional teams. Exhibit A: Charlie Davies. We'll keep tabs and if he scores more than 5 goals it will be scandalous if he's not at camp cupcake.
Re: Eugene Starikov at Zenit St Petersburg Well, Tomsk is a good place for camps - forced or otherwise - but Russia does have the same sporing-to-fall season as MLS, so he should be available in January.
They played again today and he wasn't involved at all this time either. Hopefully it's just a question of having to bed into the new team and he will get some chances as the season progresses. Not really unusual for a young guy to have to wait his turn a bit anyway.
Of course but neither he nor the article's writer insinuated that he was on the verge of the national team. He just said if approached he'd consider it. You can tell Eugene's focus is making the most of his Tomsk opportunity and not the US. I still contend that if he plays often and plays well at Tomsk (and Zenit in the future) he will earn some looks from USSF. It never hurts to keep eyes on him.
No it never hurts. I was just stating an obvious fact. Tomsk is not really much higher than an MLS side. Zenit is another story, of course.