According to reports in Belgian media Cercle Brugge is interested in a few American youngsters. Coach Glen De Boeck and manager Yvan Vandamme are visiting Brad Friedel's soccer school in the US in Augustus. Goalkeeper Patrick Lane and forward Andy Labaun (17, who's with Blackburn at the moment) are both training with Cercle.
Re: "Cercle Brugge goes American" - Andy Labaun and Patrick Lane Nice find. "Labaun" is Andrew Lubahn from Pa., who has spent some time with the U20s recently: MIDFIELDERS (5): Jose Altamirano (San Diego, Calif.), Steven Birnbaum (Irvine, Calif.), Andrew Lubahn (Erie, Pa.), Amobi Okugo (Sacramento, Calif.), Pablo Punyed (Miami, Fla.) Link: http://ussoccer.com/articles/viewArticle.jsp_5210118.html I assume Patrick Lane is the fellow from Loyola Marymount U., a 1988. Interestingly, his father was a standout goalkeeper at LMU before playing with Leeds United in England in the early 1980s... Link: http://lmulions.cstv.com/sports/m-soccer/mtt/lane_patrick00.html So maybe he can get a UK work permit.
Re: "Cercle Brugge goes American" - Andy Labaun and Patrick Lane Here's the note from the Club Brugge site. It also mentions that they are exploring a partnership of some sort with Friedel's academy.
Re: "Cercle Brugge goes American" - Andy Labaun and Patrick Lane When I saw Cercle Brugge I was expecting to see a loan agreement between HSV and Cercle had been arranged for Preston Zimmerman since he trialed there this summer. I wonder if there is still interest--anyone know? Nonetheless, I won't derail the thread. It is great to see Friedel's academy paying dividends and giving kids exposure. If there's one American that has credibility, it is Friedel.
Re: "Cercle Brugge goes American" - Andy Labaun and Patrick Lane Lubahn is on the Crew Youth Team, probably their star. This would be the first instance since opening the academies for real that a player might be signed away. Question is, do the crew get compensation?
Re: "Cercle Brugge goes American" - Andy Labaun and Patrick Lane Not if Brad Friedel stakes a claim to the kid. BTW, this has been too long in coming. Belgium has no non-EU limits (~ $100K minimum wage) but they have waited quite a long time to jump into the US market.
Re: "Cercle Brugge goes American" - Andy Labaun and Patrick Lane Thanks for the info Dave, already suspected that they had his name wrong, couldn't find that much on Google, except for those Belgian newsarticles. Maybe a moderator can edit the title.
Re: "Cercle Brugge goes American" - Andy Labaun and Patrick Lane In the news today: Patrick Lane gets a one year contract at Cercle Brugge. He'll be second or third choice behind first team keeper Bram Verbist. So maybe he'll get a few minutes this season. Haven't heard anything about Lubahn/Labaun, except a quote from July 16th which states that Cercle wants to give him a contract, but cannot sign him until he turns 18. Not confirmed though.
Re: "Cercle Brugge goes American" - Andy Labaun and Patrick Lane Very nice, thanks. Here's a link: Cercle Brugge heeft een nieuwe doelman aangetrokken. De Amerikaan Patrick Lane tekent een contract voor één seizoen met een optie. Link: http://belgiumsoccer.be/nieuws/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=11189&Itemid=225
Re: "Cercle Brugge goes American" - Andy Labaun and Patrick Lane LMU's take: Bruges, Belgium - Former LMU goalkeeper Patrick Lane has signed a professional contract with Belgian club Cercle Bruges, the club announced Thursday. Lane had been training with the team for the past three weeks and was offered the contract before he was due to return to Los Angeles for the Lions' preseason training. Link: http://www.cstv.com/sports/m-basebl/stories/080108aad.html
Re: LMU's GK Pat Lane signs only a one-year deal. i hope he has a good year and can get the team to have to be in a bidding war with some of the bigger teams next year. only two other GK's on their wiki page, and he and another were both signed this summer, while last years starter remains with the club. hopefully, like i said, he can have a good year, and take the number two shirt.
Re: LMU's GK Pat Lane signs So this makes him like 20, right? If he plays well enough the first half of the year the team might make him an extension offer and he might except.
Re: LMU's GK Pat Lane signs I fully expect a mini-exodus of young Americans to Belgium and Scandinavia, where the foreign player rules are all being eased. Clubs from these nations are aggresively scouting for talent in Africa and North America. Cercle has three players from Zimbabwe for instance. Belgium has always been a good launching point for European careers. The most interesting aspect of the Belgian league is the following: http://www.uefa.com/footballeurope/news/kind=2/newsid=673448.html?cid=rssfeed&att=index That's right, in the 2009-10 season they will be switching to "American-style" playoffs at the end of the season to determine the league champion and European places. OOOOOOOOOOH, the Eurosnobs (including myself) can't like that one. It'll be interesting to see how it goes down other there.
Re: LMU's GK Pat Lane signs They better have the ET shoot-outs. That's all I am saying. Not PK's. The one-on-one's.
Re: LMU's GK Pat Lane signs I'm wondering why they did it. Hopefully one our Belgian friends will tell us. The league has been dominated by 3 teams in recent times (Anderlecht, Club Brugge, and Genk). Standard winning this year was an aberation. Perhaps they felt that in order to maintain interest in the league as a whole and the other teams, they at least need to think they have some chance of winning.
Re: LMU's GK Pat Lane signs I think it's the old motivation - they hope to drum up some extra interest and make some money, likely from the TV rights. In the Eredivisie, they had tried a post-season play-off system (aside the champion) and now they're done with it. It's weird for soccer compared to the NBA/MLB/NHL set-up because most series are so short, just regular home&away contest. I don't think they'd dream of going to something more demanding like the Most-Goals-in-Three or Most-Points-out-of-Three matches system.
Re: "Cercle Brugge goes American" - Andy Labaun and Patrick Lane I'm a little surprised that UEFA is going to allow the Belgians to determine who represents them in Europe by virtue of a playoff system. The Belgian champion rarely makes many waves in Europe these days, and now they want to risk a series of true embarrassments by not necessarily sending the best team?
Re: "Cercle Brugge goes American" - Andy Labaun and Patrick Lane I believe the Dutch Eredivisie went to as playoff system of sorts this past season in order to determine their second Champions League birth and to determine the UEFA Cup spots.
Re: "Cercle Brugge goes American" - Andy Labaun and Patrick Lane There are already leagues in Europe that give a UEFA Cup spot to its cup winner, which is more or less a playoff system. Probably the Belgian FA figures that playoffs will give a better shot to the underdog, make the leage less predictable and generate more interest in the smaller teams.
Re: "Cercle Brugge goes American" - Andy Labaun and Patrick Lane Most (all?) leagues in Europe give a UEFA spot to a domestic Cup winner, if only due to the fact that the old Cups Winners Cup was merged into the UEFA Cup.