Excerpt: Also on show will be American triallist Michael Einfeld, a 23-year-old midfielder who was a fringe player in the MLS last year with Los Angeles Galaxy. Einfeld, a former US youth international, has paid his own fare to spend a month trying to win an A-League contract. Link: http://www.smh.com.au/news/football...c-for-dual-role/2007/03/13/1173722468543.html The Einfeld (sic) mention is on page 2 of that article. The club is Sydney FC. Club site: http://www.sydneyfc.com/ The match is a warmup against Wollongong Wolves: http://www.sydneyfc.com/default.aspx?s=newsdisplay&id=7249&pageid=489 They're warming up for an AFC match against Urawa Red Diamonds from Japan. Enfield is a 1983.
I was wondering what happened to this guy. Nice find. Hope he latches on with a team. Enfield was one of UCLA's best players from recent years and those guys usually find a place in the pros. I'm not sure what happened to him with the Galaxy, but he has a lot of skill. Yeah, he was small, but I remember him being super quick, fast, and great on the ball. He was a very dynamic, attacking player who was moved up from midfield to a forward position. I think he scored a lot too.
Enfield made a good first impression: American triallist Michael Enfield - a fringe player with Los Angeles Galaxy last year - scored one of the goals after coming off the bench for the second half, and interim coach Branko Culina said: "It was a good start for him. He showed a lot of nippiness, he had a good touch, he showed qualities in reading the game. There's a lot to like about him." As for the bigger picture: Looking further afield, Culina believes that whatever recruiting the club does embark upon for next season, it should be based on quality, not quantity. "It's better to have one or two new players who can start in the first XI, and can make an impact, rather [than] four or five who will be in the squad but not see first-team football on a regular basis," he said. "You can't have a big gap between the first XI, and the next batch. You've got to have 15 or 16 players who can push each other, week-in and week-out. If that's not the case, the chances of us being a strong team will be lessened quite considerably. "Maybe we need two or three new faces … We'd obviously like a marquee player, and then we need another couple, maybe a left back and a midfielder. If we do that, and don't lose anyone, then we should be more than a decent side." Full story: http://www.smh.com.au/news/football...e-over-the-moon/2007/03/15/1173722654595.html
There's a feature on Mike in an Aussie paper today: Enfield is hoping he can make more of an impact than his countryman [Alejandro Salazar, who the club signed with some fanfare but who made zero impact]. He should know shortly before Sydney’s ACL clash with Indonesia’s Persik Kediri on April 11 whether he’ll get his chance to shine in the harbour city. Full article: http://au.fourfourtwo.com/news/48729,la-story-mystery-man-revealed.aspx
Another run-out for Mike: In other news, American triallist Michael Enfield will have another chance to impress when Sydney FC play NSW Premier League side Marconi Stallions in a practice match at Bossley Park tonight. Link (but that's all the Mike news from the article): http://www.stuff.co.nz/4016285a18075.html
Mike didnt do much with the Galaxy , the only think I can remember is a diving header on July 4th a couple years back. it was a nice goal , but other than that , he didn't do a lot else.
FFT Oz is a monthly football magazine similar to its UK counterpart, rather than a newspaper. They're pretty good with little features like this online that don't make their print edition. Nice find. Shame he didn't make an impact at the Galaxy, sounds like he's definitely got some potential given his success with the US U/19s. Given his size, maybe he just needs some time to adjust to professional men's football.
Enfield played the second half but didn't score in a 3-0 win over Marconi Stallions: http://www.sydneyfc.com/default.aspx?s=newsdisplay&id=7378&pageid=489 Offhand I'm not aware of any other Yanks in the A-League apart from our man Bruce Djite, who was born in D.C. but lives in and plays for Australia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diego_Walsh Diego Walsh plays for Adelaide United after moving over from Miami FC. It still has yet to be determined if he's in fact an American citizen having lived here more than half his life and attending SMU. His Wikipedia entry does state he's a Brazilian-American, though.
According to FoxSoccer, Mike has signed a 2-year deal. He's apparently not allowed to play in the current Asia Cup, though. http://msn.foxsports.com/soccer/story/6652418
yeh asian champions, you have to register players before each stage. if they make the quarter finals he will play. it will be tough but they lead the group ahead of urawa red diamonds from japan and shanghai shenhua from china
Two-year contract confirmed by the club: American attacker Michael Enfield has signed a two-year contract with Sydney FC after the diminutive 23-year-old former USA youth international impressed during his one-month trial with the Hyundai A-League club. Former Los Angeles Galaxy star Enfield scored a goal on his Sydney FC debut against Wollongong Wolves and had a hand in every one of his new team's three goals versus Marconi Stallions on Wednesday night. ... Enfield cannot play for Sydney FC in its AFC Champions League Group E games against Persik Kediri, Shanghai Shenhua and Urawa Reds but he would be eligible to play should the club qualify for the competition's knockout phase, which kicks off in September. Link: http://www.sydneyfc.com/default.aspx?s=newsdisplay&id=7382&pageid=489
By reading the Sydney forums, it sounds like he will be a good backup for Steve Corica. They said he is very talented, but a major negative about him is his height. Hopefully (for Michael) he can find his feet again in Australia and maybe make another run at a MLS club, even if it's just a bench player. There has to be some talent there is he's played for the US juniors, maybe this is the change he needs in his career.
how much is he making in australia? what's the average pay over there, the highest pay, minimum pay? what is the attendance like and is soccer a major sport over there like it is in Europe?
similar to MLS. they have something similar to the dp players MLS has but the highest pay outside of dp's is a bit lower than MLS. average attendance in the A-League is about 13,000. it's similar to the US in that it's not one of the major sports but is on an upswing.
not sure how much he is making but our salary cap is $1.6 million average crowd in the second season was about 14,500 its not a mainstream sport but we are growing. at the moment it is about the 5th most popular here
from what I've seen soccer has more respect in Australia than in USA, especially since Australians seem less -Australian- centric like we are so USA focused and Australians seem more connected with Europe and the rest of the world on average... Good for Mike Enfield, he's scored some AMAZING goals for UCLA and the Galaxy... Is Australia a better route to Europe than is MLS?
well i hope noone in usa gets beaten up in school for kicking a soccerball around lol.. used to happen to me and friends alot and ive heard many other reports of this. the majority of people in australia hate the game, and most jounalists and people in the media try to turn people off the game by making false claims of riots (even on the front pages) after just 3 people getting arrested for drunkedness. but with that said, we are slowly getting respectfrom non-ethnic australians which is crucial because with just 20m people we cant afford to be split 50/50 if we want our national team to be good and for the game to survie here not sure, we got 100+ players in europe but i dont know if the a-leagues got anything to do with it
Just had a look then to make sure I was right. It's 143 players in europe and about 200 overseas all up. 1 player in south america lol (colo colo in chile). The list isn't completely updated so there should be some more aswell. Nah not all of them are top divisions. Alot are 2nd divisions and such, but many are top divisions too.
Yeah true. Should have seen the rubbish in the papers last week... Headline "10 reasons why AFL is better then soccer" and it had stuff like "1. We get to use our hands" "2. We dont have hooligans" "3. We score more goals" .. pretty stupid stuff, we cop that all the time lol I remember one during the world cup just after australia made the 2nd round. The headline was "Who cares?" And was talking about how the majority of "real australians" don't care about the world cup and how they would rather their afl team win on the weekend than australia win the whole world cup. wish bastards like them who write bullshit articles would just die. I should make a webpage with all the anti-football articles that have been written in the past 5 years so people can see them and see how pathetic some of the media down here is.