Here's an interesting one -- seems he might be with MFK Kosice: Okrem Srbov Nemanju Matiča a Marka Milinkoviča v seniorskom tíme, medzi mládežníkmi MFK Košice je až päť zahraničných futbalistov. Brazílčania Carlos Ferreira a Dionatan Teixeira prišli do Košíc vlani v lete - najprv sa rozohrávali v doraste, no teraz už kmeňovo patria do seniorského „béčka“, v ktorom je aj Uroš Matič, mladší brat Nemanju Matiča. Teraz v zime pribudol do našich dorasteneckých kádrov ďalší Brazílčan Jorge Junior Balbino a Američan Zachary Steinberger. I'm not sure exactly when that's from. http://www.mfkkosice.sk/c/portal_pu...rticle_version=1.0&_15_cmd=articleCountUpdate He appears to be a 92 who has played with the IMG team (alongside, it seems, Middlesbrough academy player and U18 pool member Patrick Otte, as well as Germany-based Dominique Close): http://www.ussoccer.com/articles/viewArticle.jsp_3440644.html
Wow don't often see Young Yanks with no connection to a less soccer-popular (England, Germany, Mexico)country playing there. Steinberger definitely isn't a Slovakian name. I guess his mom could be from there.
Can anyone make heads or tails of this article on Steinberger from late July? http://tvnoviny.sk/sport/futbal/americky-stredopoliar-steinberger-zostava-v-mfk-kosice.html
A very bad google translation. From what I can gather he is still with the club. Zachary Steinberger, which is part of the spring season 2008/09 he worked in youth cooperatives English football club MFK Kosice, remains to operate in the metropolis of the Eastern Republic. Delivered not only games but also to humanity. Mentally different from our Czech boys. It has a great desire to work for themselves and improve. It is good, even if our Slovak players see that Zachary Steinberger was willing to come from economically developed countries particularly from the other end of the world to Košice and appreciate what is in our conditions on the growth performance and better quality training than in the U.S.. Steinberger went for the half year, which is in Kosice, top performance, progress made game. His great desire is to revise our Senior A-Team "
He played last Spring with the youth squads (U-17 last season according to MFK website), and they like his attitude. Not a whole lot else out there, but he did start several matches for U-17 just looking at some match reports. Košice had 3 US based players trial last summer, none of them stuck, but they must have some scouting connection. It's a very nice little city actually, that underwent extensive renovation during the Tatra Tiger years.
Looks like he's still there (with the U19/U18 squad): http://eng.mfkkosice.sk/c/portal_public/layout?p_l_id=31.27
Bob should let young Zachary kick the ball around with the MNT during one of our upcoming pre-game training sessions.
He was with IMG at the Dallas Cup. http://blog.imgacademies.com/2010/03/31/destination-dallas-cup-img-u-19s-vs-lonestar/
He may now be with Karlsruher SC's U19s, along with Joshua Smith. The club hasn't updated its U19 roster page, but transfermarkt lists both of them on this team and there's a Steinberger mentioned in a recent U17 match report. EDIT: Found this... Beim KSC fehlt Mittelfeldspieler Zachary Steinberger (Gelb-Rote Karte). http://www.dfb.de/index.php?id=500014&tx_dfbnews_pi1[showUid]=24679&tx_dfbnews_pi4[cat]=71 So, looks like it's official.
He finished this season with Karlsruhe (played 20 games) but apparently he's going to move to another club and won't stay in Karlsruhe.
Looks like he winded up playing for Butler this fall. http://www.butlersports.com/sports/m-soccer/2011-12/bios/steinberger_zach00.html
He probably never signed a pro contract. He never made it past Karlsruhe's U19 team. The NCAA is littered with players (usually not Americans) who washed out of Euro academies and decided to get an education instead. Sometimes they excel and wind up in the MLS draft.
He most likely deemed that at this stage in his career a private school education was worth more than hacking it in Slovakia.
Steinberger isn't a Slovak name originally, but there was a lot of intermarriage between ethnic Germans and Slovaks (and Hungarians) over the centuries of the Austro-Hungarian empire before the communists drove them out after the war. I'm guessing, but maybe one of his grandparents hailed from there and perhaps he lived with relatives or connections while training in Slovakia. As for Germany, he was playing for the U-19s of a lower-division club, so he's unlikely to have received much more than a pocket-money level expense allowance on top of room and board. IIRC the NCAA no longer considers that to be playing pro. Anyways, congrats to the guy. A lot of kids give up. He kept going, and got a degree from a good college. Wishing him luck.
While this is a player I actually recognize (Jan Koller for those who don't, who's Czech, as in part of former Czechoslovakia--the connection sidefootsitter is apparently referring to), usually your references are too cryptic to understand. It would be nice if you provided some sort of additional information so that your posts can be useful to those of us that don't know every player since the beginning of time.
Since we've delved into the Euro migration topic - That 2006 Czech squad had several Germanic surnames in Jan Koller, Jiri Stajner (I assume, it was Steiner a few generations earlier), Marek Heinz and their head coach Karel Brückner. Thomas Ujfalusi has Hungarian blood. Radoslav Kovac likely has Yugoslavian (Croatian) roots. Of the current Slovakian team, there's Vladimir Weiss, Miroslav Stoch and Robert Mak.