The official Sam Garza thread

I like what he says about his game - plays both sides of the ball, and lots of pace. If he's good enough on the defense side, maybe he will be a Brian Mullan kind of outside mid player.

 

We should bring Hucks back in the offseason to mentor this guy.

 

...as well as Salinas, whom Hucks seemed to feel had a lot of promise. Garza even looks a little bit like Hucks, particularly with that little hair standing up in front thing.

 

http://www.quakerattleandgoal.com/2...se-earthquakes-fill-their-need-for-speed-with

Pretty impressive. Sounds like he really does have some pace.

 

OTOH, sounds like Dawkins wants not want to play @ LMF

say it was not just a ploy in order to keep BC off the pitch

 

FWIW, Ives also called it, so maybe not the reach some people seem to think it was. (Of course, Ives may have just talked to John and Frank):

http://msn.foxsports.com/foxsoccer/...perdraft-darren-mattocks-andrew-wenger-011112

 

Why not? An excellent idea.

 

We got Sam? Oh, hell yeah!

Break out the tortillas! Gaucho Locos!

 

Actually, this does not seem to be true. Perhaps it used to be, but I looked at the drafts for the past 3 years to see what the story was. I looked at the top 10 picks for the 2009, 2010, and 2011 drafts and how much they played in their first year.

Out of 30 picks, 21 of them played very regularly, starting at least half the matches. 16 (of those 21) started 21 or more matches. An additional 2 played significant minutes (900+), and one of those (Opara) was really a starter but got injured and couldn't play. Out of the 7 players picked in the top 10 who did not start regularly or at least play 900 minutes, 3 of them were 18 years old or younger, so you wouldn't expect them to play. So you could say that only 4 players were picked in the top 10 over 3 years that did not meet expectations.

That tells me that the odds of a top 10 pick becoming a regular starter and key contributor in their first year, particularly if they are not really young, are extremely good (21 out of 27, or 78%).

 

I stand corrected. This is a trend I was thinking might be happening, but I think there was a recent "wrap-up" of 2011 by Gardner where he reiterated his position. I think his point wasn't that they weren't going to be ready for MLS, but instead, not really all that good. Meaning getting significant minutes in MLS does not indicate real soccer skill has been gained in college.

I think he's not willing to budge on his "NCAA college I'd not good for developing players" position and now that players are getting minutes, as you've pointed out, Gardner's shifting his point to "so, they couldn't play anywhere else".

 

Dot,

A) That's simply not true, lots of college players go on to play a lot in MLS.

B) He paints with too broad a brush. There are some problems still, you saw it in this year's tournament what he complains about in terms of teams playing for the win instead of playing for style, we saw UNC-Charlotte go on a cinderella run and get all the way to the final by having an English coach having them play bunker ball and ugly soccer and win a lot of 0-0 shootouts and 1-0 overtime wins.

However, we also have more and more programs now embracing the style and development aspects that Gardner has always yearned for. It started with Akron and now UNC and UCLA are getting in it too. The UCLA-UNC semifinal this year was actually the final in most people's opinions and it was a great showcase of beautiful possession soccer.

http://espn.go.com/blog/los-angeles/soccer/post/_/id/13404/no-9-ucla-coach-jorge-salcedo

 

The college game is somewhat of an ok model and the best players ages 18-22 usually go to college. I really only started watching the college game 3 years ago for the first time in almost 20 years and I must say, I was/am impressed with the level of play. I think its a lot better than the PDL and NPSL tiers are. Tim Vom Steeg at UCSB (although I don't care for him personally) has a great system in place. Kevin Grimes at CAL , Caleb Porter at Akron and Cam Rast at Santa Clara all seem to know their stuff. I didn't and don't care for Paul Krumpe at Loyola Marymount University on how he employs an old English style kick and run game which to me anyway, isn't all that appealing but I guess he seems to think it works and he has been at LMU since 1998 so I guess he is doing something right. Dean Wurzberger at UW had been head coach at UW from 1992-2010 and finally resigned last year and he was a nice guy. I liked his style of play dating back to when he coached the WSA San Francisco Bay Blackhawks. It is true however, that the college game faces many problems. I mean the college season is way too short and playing 20 games (or rather on Friday & Sunday) in a span of 2 months IMHO is just not a good development model for any player, especially if they are getting ready to transition into the professional ranks. I mean the season starts in September and is over at the beginning of November and there really isn't much time to create cohesion or teach a certain style, for that matter. I mean the kids seem to adapt as best they can in the short period of time they are given but I believe it would be much better if it were spread out over a 20 week span. I doubt however, the NCAA really cares either way and this is evident on how they are or were thinking of doing away with spring ball.

 

Err, that is what I just wrote/agreed with/made me change my mind. They play. A lot.

This does not rebuke his assertion.

What would is if these guys blew off MLS and went and got minutes in France, Germany and Italy. (We know there are people getting minutes in England and other parts of Europe... But they have to be stars in MLS before that happens, not stars in NCAA soccer).

 

I think it would be safe to say that it's rare that a college player comes to MLS and becomes a "star" right off the bat. Seems like the most common case is that the top picks often get a significant number of starts, but their performance is a up and down. This is not surprising of course. They're learning to play at a higher level. Salinas is a good example. He began 2008 as a starter, but his performance was up and down. He had a bit of an upswing at the end of that year, but his career has continued to be sort of up and down, in and out of starting lineups.

And then of course there are guys who do wind up becoming stars - guys like Wondo. But it doesn't happen on a set schedule and it isn't necessarily the "blue chip" guys. Wondo was a supplemental draftee out of Chico. The trick is to have some way of assessing college players, not just looking at their numbers in college, but something about their game that you think would enable it to translate well and develop in MLS.

 

There's usually one or two guys who do this every year. It's been a mixed bag of results with success stories like Charlie Davies (pre-crash) and bad results like Cervi buried on Celtic's depth chart. 2 more did it this year in Billy Schuler and Brian Cobi Span. We'll have to wait and see with them.

I think quite a few elite ncaa players could go to Europe and succeed but they choose to stay here b/c they are more assured of getting playing time and developing their game and not have to worry about the culture clash of moving to a new country upsetting their development. Like Brek Shea, Steve Zakuani, Darren Mattocks, Andrew Wenger for example. Probably not Germany or Italy but Holland/France/Scandinavia/Belgium/Scotland.

 

If he starts scoring goals, I'm bringing tortillas.

Go Gauchos!

 

Beer.

 

The beer will appear whether everybody scores or nobody scores. It just tastes better with SJE goals.

 

I saw Garza play in Portland in the preseason game against the GoatShaggers. Now it was, just the GoatShaggers, but Sam and Sercan opened up the GoatLovers defense like a kid unwrapping a candy bar. Sam played a perfectly weighted ball for Sercan, who duly burried it, and then a little bit later, Sercan played a through ball for Sam (hilariously, the Goats covered Sercan and soiled themselves when Sam made the run) and Sam finished cleanly.

I think he's a pretty good signing.

IF our team is going to depend on speed up the wings (an idea of which I approve, mind you) then having lots of speedy quality wingers is a good idea. It may take Sam a year or two to get good enough to push for starting time, but with Chavez, Dawkins, and Salinas in front of him there's no rush.

Also, it looks like Frank is putting pretty high value on locker room happiness this season, so that may well factor into it too. If Sam gets on well with the guys, then Frank may have thought better to take the guy we know is a fit than take a flyer on a guy who might be better, but might not get along with the other players. (Which shows a sort of once Conveied twice shy sort of mentality, when Frank ought to just devote more time to managing his locker room.)

GO QUAKES!!
GO GARZA!!

- Mark

 

Great article. It's nice to see that there are players who are genuinely excited to be given the opportunity to play professionally. There are so many jaded, self-important individuals I see out on the field that I enjoy seeing the guys who really WANT to be out there and aren't just doing it for a paycheck!