He might not have broken a law, but there’s enough odiferous smoke there that I choose to believe he would not have been reinstated. The way he kept half the money meant for her had to be a big problem with the FO.
Hernández, Bofo, and Acosta starting tonight against the RGV Toros. Non-academy starters include Ruiz and Henley.
Monarchs part ways with Michael Gallagher, reducing by one their number of University of Washington alumni.
There's late season collapses, and then there's whatever the Monarchs are doing. One point in seven games, and losses of 5-2 and 6-1 in the last two games. Maybe the influence of Briggs is gone and it's Olave's team now?
Odder to me is the lineup choices in this run. Last game (the 6-1 loss) there were 4 first team players in the 18, but all were on the bench. 2 didn't get subbed in at all. Connor Sparrow is back from his injury and in the 18 for the past couple games, but he hasn't played at all. If you're not going to sign and play younger players on the team, at the very very least you should be letting the first-teamers stay sharp with regular games, and helping guys like Sparrow come back from injuries. The fact that even those very minimal standards aren't even being met is just baffling.
30 seconds left in stoppage time, and Reno scores (I watched on KSL.com). If this is what not playing the kids gets us the last two years, then by all means, change gears!
I loved Olave on RSL, Favorite player, to be honest. Brutally direct at times, but so talented. I will always remember him chasing down Rooney during the all stars game. His presence deflecting headers... there would be some defensive games where I would hear Olave's name 10, 11 times in the last 20 minutes. However. I never heard that he was the brains of our defense. I hope well for his coaching tenure, but we also need to be realistic.
I'm guessing the Monarchs will announce their offseason roster moves soon. S2 just did. Of the 13 players on S2's 2019 roster, 12 are 18 or younger, and 8 have youth national team experience. These are players who are under contract, not just getting minutes from the academy. As a related point, when was the last time Seattle lost an academy prospect to a European team? I can't think of one off the top of my head. They've given academy players an extremely clear path to the first team, and it's working. And some of these players are extremely valuable prospects. Gonzalez and Ocampo-Chavez in particular are seen as very strong pro prospects, who would certainly have suitors in Europe if that was the route they wanted to go.
Garth was HUGE on the academy setup and building the club "pyramid", if you will. That this is happening so well under his leadership is no accident. I remember being in a town hall with Garth (whatever happened to those?) and him being really really pissed about losing Lennon to Liverpool. He also talked up Glad like he was an even better player and was really excited about him joining the first team. More than that, though, Garth was super excited to get a proper pyramid setup with layers between the academy and first team that made sense. And then he left
I’ve wondered if Garth was the true visionary in all of this. This seems to indicate it might be the case.
It does seem like the shift towards HGPs who played in the NCAA occurred when Waibel took over. Which would make sense since he was an NCAA coach. From my quick check, Waibel signed 3 players directly from the academy in his 4 year tenure - Ovalle, Acosta, and now Vasquez. For Garth I count Lopez, Fernandez, Toia, Muniz, Glad, Saucedo. I only see 1 Garth-NCAA signing, which was Allen, who only spent 1 season (i.e. 3 months) at UVA. Waibel has 5. Garth always wanted the USL team to be the bridge from the academy to the first team, which is what S2 has become. Waibel seems to prefer the NCAA to fill that role.
And here's the Monarchs moves. They retain 10 players from the roster, the youngest of whom is 21, most of whom are 24-27. They've still retained 3 alumni of the University of Washington roster in 2013 (Heard, Gallagher, Moberg), though organization-wide our 2013 UW group appears to have dropped by 1 with Peay leaving.
Is it too much to hope that they're clearing the way for a bunch of Academy players? (Don't answer that, I'm hanging on to the illusion of hope until they announce the signing of a pile of retreads and foreign wingers.)
reminder number 4596781 that our feeder club is being misused The two best players are moving on! No, not to the first team
Didn't see a Monarchs thread or didn't really look too hard for the thread. Went to the game today. My first Monarchs game. I should really apologize for not making time to get there sooner. Great little stadium. Had seats in the north end and you can just stand there next to the boards. Literally 3 feet from the field. It was rather entertaining. They did leave it late and fortunately scored moments before heading to PK's. Was a little frustrated that even up a man from around the 50th minute or so that they looked like RSL trying to find a goal. Back and forth, left and right, dribble, dribble, dribble, lose the ball blah, blah, blah. Fun stuff though. They're off to the USL final.
The El Paso goalkeeper did make some really good saves in the second half, and one especially in the second overtime. Weird winner on that looping header from Holt.