From the Dispatch http://www.columbusdispatch.com/crew/crew.php?story=dispatch/2007/01/08/20070108-D10-01.html "The Crew is working on a partnership with Birminghambased Aston Villa of the English Premier League" "Sebastian Rozental is close to signing with an Israeli team" "Marcos Gonzalez might move back to South America, [but] he is under contract for the 2007 season" Paul.
So that solidifies the stuff that was being posted over on matchnight. and he was only a disappointment because the team didn't know how to take advantage of a great soccer mind that could definitely still move around very well, whether you guys call him chunky or not. if Sigi hadn't lost his faith in him and had played him the whole season, i guarantee our outcome on the season would have been a little better, especially once Virtuoso got into the mix...
A great soccer mind? Funniest thing i have read in a few days. That is quite a leap to guarantee a better season. Great players will find a way to impose their will on a few games a season. I cannot remember the Chunky Chilean doing that.
Whatever happened to the "partnership" with that club in Brazil? They made this big deal about signing up and swapping players and training down there and all of that. Lapper spent a lot of time on the beach at Ipanema putting the thing together. It was going to slove all our problems, answer all our questions and be our pre-season home, blah, blah, blah. Like so much of what the Crew does, it was an announcement followed by a complete lack of execution. Just smoke, noise and bulllshit. Might as well. Sigi never liked the guy. Fitness issues aside, he preferred Gaven or just about anybody else to someone who could actually play the game. Ridiculous. Thi is not at all what the article says. Rather, this is a small portion of a sentence, taken completely out of context and is exactly the opposite of what the sentence actually says. Read it all, Bucky. Don't post crap.
Not trying to "post crap", I was just trying to get the point across that he is under contract in 07. Here is the whole thing: "Despite reports that Chilean defender and Crew MVP Marcos Gonzalez might move back to South America, he is under contract for the 2007 season."
A Crew article...on the day of the National Championship Game? See, The Dispatch love us. Also if they plan on staying on Jekyll Island, they better pack the Skin so Soft, about the only thing that'll keep the swarms of nats off you; it's like a black wall in some parts.
They used the space they had reserved for a big write up on the Ohio University victory. That was painful, what I saw of it last night...
Nahh, I think they were threatened by the HPI piece that went up yesterday. They had to get the news out to the masses...
Before you attempt to rewrite history, the rest of the soccer world agrees with Sigi Schmid seeing as Rozental's best offer is (reportedly) coming from a club in Israel.
As we've discussed in the past, its going to be hard to find good overseas friendlies for the Crew to play in strictly due to the time of year they are in training. A lot of teams are in mid to late season form and we're just trying to regain fitness. I'm not sure there is a lot of worth in a match like that if we get our jocks handed to us. Seems like it would be more demoralizing that motivational or whatever. Plus if a team is struggling to fight off relegation or fighting for a Euro cup spot or dealing with a season full of injuries or an otherwise already busy schedule (league, cups, etc), we're going to be hard pressed to find anything better than Ukrainian B teams to play against. Honestly, I think it would be better if the team found a good location and stayed put for a solid 3 weeks or more. Make it kind of like a World Cup prep environment. Let's just say, for arguements sake, you find a nice town in Brazil to set up shop for a month. Good training facilities, good housing/hotel accomodations, bring in your cooks and dieticians and trainers and what have you. Then with you can play against some of the local teams at their leasure. But you're not constantly packing bags, catching flights, dealing with jet-lag, etc. Even last season when they were going from east to west coast and everything else, it just seemed like you're wasting too much time running around and not enough time getting team chemistry and fitness to acceptable levels after the off season.