It's not always just a matter of the quality of the team you play for. The quality of the league is also very important. Sure, Tomsk is not the best team is the RPL, but if Eugene eventually becomes a regular, then he will play against defenders from CSKA, Zenit, Rubin, etc, which are very good teams. This will be instrumental for his development. EDIT: quick parallel: when Michael Bradley first joined BMG, they were a relegation bound team in the BL. But he still got to play a season against some top-class midfielders in the league, and they managed to stay up. That's why we here at Big Soccer always want our YAs to join the bigger leagues, for the better competition.
By the way, who changed his name? On Tomsk he is listed as Evgeni and in english he is Eugene. Anyone know?
Yes I am aware of that. But why did he change his name? I know plenty of Evgeni's here. I am just curious.
Because if a player is a reserve for an MLS side, most people are not going to be talking about him for the national team.
Since he was born in Odessa, presumably he was called Evgeni at birth. I'd assume that in the US he Americanized it but now that he's back in a Russian-speaking place he's back to the Russian-speaking name. I live in a Russian speaking place and I know an American named Andrew who goes by Andrei. Why? It's easier.
Yeah but most Russian/Ukrainian immigrants don't anglicize their names nowadays. That's why I found it odd.
You can call him whatever you want. Yevhen if it suits you. As for the city, that's not really the same thing.
So you're asking why he goes by Eugene in the US? That's pretty much a personal decision that none of us here know the reason for.
I just made an actually meaningful discovery on Zhenya's progress at Tom'. He has played in the "youth" (I assume that means reserve) match vs Rubin reserves. Here is some info about the game: 0-0, Starikov started, played 79 mins. Match tracker, in Russian. Highlights: Starikov hit the post in the 1st minute off a corner. Starikov had a nice through ball to Zharikov in the 29th minute, that was picked up by keeper. Starikov had another almost assist to Zharikov in the 47minute but the shot was wide. Starikov was replaced in the 79th minute.
He didn't make the bench for the last 1st team match either. It seems odd that he was loaned from Zenit youth squad to the Tomsk youth team. Hopefully he can get promoted to the 1st team soon.
I haven't seen him on the roster for the reserve games the past few weeks, so I was hoping he would make the 1st team roster, but he didn't make that either. Also, Tom' loaned a new attacking player from Spartak Moskva, 21 year old Aleksandr Prudnikov. That can't be good for Eugene.
The forecast for tomorrow in Tomsk is 24º F with a 20% chance of snow. They take winter seriously in Siberia.
STARIKOV NAGGED BY ANKLE INJURY "I sprained my ankle pretty bad in the very first week and didn't give it enough rest and made it even worse the following week in training," Starikov recently told YA. "I just have been treating the injury for the past month so that's why I haven't been playing."
He played a half for the reserve team vs the Zenit reserves. Probably played against his old buddies from Zenit.
Eugene played 40 minutes for the reserve team yesterday and made the bench for the first team today, but didn't play. Tomsk lost 3-1 at CSKA. http://soccernet.espn.go.com/match?id=290994&league=RUS.1&cc=5901
He did play 25 minutes for the reserves yesterday. It seems like he's still exactly where he was last year, except for Tom being worse than Zenit.
I saw portions of the first half of Zenit-Nalchik today ... Zenit has a lot of talent upfront. Just to sign with them ain't that bad of a deal.