Here's a fun one -- it seems a '98 named Ander Egiluz, whose mother is an American and who spent some of his childhood in Boise, is in the academy of Athletic Bilbao. Credit to the local television Boise TV station, which produced this feature: http://www.ktvb.com/story/news/loca...cer-players-second-home-is-in-boise/26547961/ At the end, the reporter makes clear that Egiluz is a citizen and says he would like to play for the U.S. It seems he's on ice right now while recovering from surgery. A short (Spanish) report from last year: http://lacanteradelezama.com/2014/06/el-jugador-del-romo-ander-egiluz-a-prueba-en-el-athletic/ His Twitter: https://twitter.com/egiluz20 Based on LinkedIn results, he may be Ander Egiluz Jr. In July, Bilbao will play Xolos in a friendly in Boise: http://www.idahostatesman.com/2015/04/09/3740268/basque-soccer-friendly-organizers.html
He's listed as a midfielder in a few places. DOB: 4/27/98 I never knew of this Boise/Basque connection until Athletic Bilbao announced their friendly there a little while ago.
(Photo: Xanti Alcelay/KTVB) Ander Egiluz @egiluz20 Jul 1 USA vs. Belgium: #AreYouReady: http://youtu.be/QC9FwLgDwwo #USA https://www.facebook.com/ander.egiluz
The Basque Soccer Friendly was on Saturday; they installed grass on top of the famous blue Boise State football turf. Egiluz was in town, but not as a squad member: This week, the 17-year-old central midfielder gets to show off his team as he helps Bilbao behind the scenes during its visit to Boise to take on Mexico’s Club Tijuana. The Basque Soccer Friendly starts at 7:06 p.m. Saturday at Albertsons Stadium. Egiluz and his family travel to Boise every summer and for most Christmas holidays. His maternal grandparents emigrated to Southern Idaho through Ellis Island, giving birth to Egiluz’s mother, Michelle Alzola, in Mountain Home. She met Egiluz’s father, Jose Luis Egiluz, while singing in a Basque choir when the Basque government sent the orchestra director to Boise to aid the choir. http://www.idahostatesman.com/2015/07/15/3897264/athletic-bilbao-youth-academy.html#storylink=cpy Bilbao won the friendly 2-0 in front of a reported 20,000 or so. Local news video here: http://www.kboi2.com/news/local/Bas...to-the-spotlight-317140861.html?tab=video&c=y However, as someone who attended NYCFC-NYRB a few weeks ago, I take offense with the idea that "lines were still long minutes before the game kicked off" means much more than poor gameday management.
I never knew until now that Idaho had such a significant Basque population: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basque_American#Idahoan-Basques I'll be damned...
huh. Wonder if there are good pinchos bars in Boise another fun Basque fact...apparently the closest linguistically related language to Basque is Welsh
Juvenil B: Gernika 3 - Athletic Club B 6⚽️ Ander Eguiluz 2, Ewan Urain, Xabier Naveira, Xabier Mayordomo, Oier Zarraga #lezama— Athletic Club (@AthleticClub) January 30, 2016 Scored a brace for Bilbao's Juvenil B team, which I believe equates to U18. Above is Juvenil A (U19), the reserve team (Segunda, for the time being), and of course the first team.
A couple of possible reasons: 1. Does the USSF even know about him? He's from Idaho, so he'd be mostly off the typical radar for YNTs. His move to Bilbao came with very little fanfare. If an obscure kid like him moves and nobody from the usual stable of media voices profile him....is the USSF guaranteed to know about it? 2. Unclear how good Egiluz is. He's playing with the U-18s when Bilbao also has a U-19 team. In Spain, is it like Germany where the U-18s are basically the U-19 B team? If so, maybe he's a lesser prospect. Yes, Bilbao is a big club but even big clubs have roster filler type players and Bilbao has strict self-imposed restrictions on their possible player pool because of the Basque thing. So maybe they are more likely to take a flyer on a guy who's a more marginal prospect? All speculation, of course. I've never seen him play and doubt anyone else on these boards has, unless with have an Athletic Bilbao aficionado who has yet to reveal themselves.
1. You might be right if no one at all knows about him, but he's pretty regularly talked about here (updates a few times a year), and I'd be really surprised if they don't have someone who regularly checks big soccer to see if we've found anyone that they haven't. Also, they should be much better at finding Yanks abroad than we are. 2. USSF called up a German-American who's not even a regular starter with the Kaiserslautern U-19's to the U-18 team, so they don't seem to be judging too critically about these dual-national yanks playing in European academies. You might be right though about how good Egiliz is. They have a lot of players younger than him on the Juvenil A team, and he's one of the oldest players on the Juvenil B team.
We found Siebatcheu and Ashton Goetz (or at least put it into the WWW, other than just these unreliable databases). We've probably even more than that. I don't think you'd find that USSF has found many more players completely not on the radar of fans than we have.
Well, of course, but we don't know if those players have already gotten into "the list" or if they have contacted the fed first. They have certainly surprised us with players like CCV or Lipe that we didn't have a clue about.
Is this roster out somewhere? Can't seem to find it. Also, didn't they just play some friendly tournament last month?
Recent U19 call up Ander Egiluz played 74' for Bilbao's U18 in a 7-2 win on Saturday. Ohio-born Markos Iturbe was an unused sub.— Nats Abroad (@Nats_Abroad) April 4, 2016
Still no YNT roster I'm aware of. @Canadian_Supporter mentioned an upcoming U18 tournament in Europe that might be what they were talking about. http://forums.bigsoccer.com/threads/slovakia-cup-u18-apr-25-to-29.2030657/
http://www.lacanteradelezama.com/an...-seleccion-sub19-de-ee-uu-en-la-slovakia-cup/ Short article on his involvement in the Slovakian cup: Ander sat the first game of the tournament and played the first half of the second game before being subbed at the half for Marlon Fossey (Fulham). (added bonus for article calling Friedel "mythical")