Re: Houston Reserve Schedule Aloisi was listed as questionable (foot) until yesterday morning. I noticed Hutton was not listed in the MLS salaries list that came out in the Washington Post. 25 players are listed (by my count, 17 are senior roster and 8 are developmental; however, Wondo's salary is listed as $28K-- does that make him a senior roster player? if so, the count is 18 and 7).
Re: Houston Reserve Schedule No...what actually happened was a Juan Giraldo of the local Houston semi-pro league was contacted by someone with AEG to get their players as a tryout. So Juan got all the best talent in his league, invited in "open" tryouts to others in the community that have the backing of a trainer or coach and let them play in a very unorganized run about back in Feb. I brought in 4 players that I have either coached or played with and I made sure that all were 21 or 20 years old. Unfortuantely, back in Feb was when the whole Sylvia Garcia communist name change fiasco was going on and Juan's coaches had it in for any talent outside of their own league players. Thus, what Dom and his staff saw as the "best" Houston had to offer was a joke. That's what lead Tim to tell me that,"the players we've seen wouldn't even make the college teams back in California." He also told me very plainly that,"these local league guys have given us players that are totally unfit for the MLS playing caliber." That,"it is a joke that some of these guys think MLS is a semi-pro league and they don't understand the level of quality in MLS." I communicated back with Tim and said it was very unfortunate that politics overrided a true attempt to get Houston's local talent in front of our new Pro coaches. As the last man to run a pro soccer franchise in this city, I would like to have the trust of everyone involved in that I know what talent is and as a local Houston boy myself I know just how massively talented our local products are. In the last year of HHFC, I signed a San Jac product. He quickly started for the Hurricanes, made the All-Star team that summer of '01 and was offered by Tigres of the MFL to come down with them to train in their system. So here was a local white dude that can flat out play, being offered a contract on the spot by a First Divison Mexican Club here in Clutch City while never having played in MLS or the A-League. That's a massive step to go from San Jac to Tigres of the MFL. I assured Tim that Houston talent is the best in the nation and this is all done without a pro franchise with the financial backing to grow its own talent pool or any other major Div-1 programs to grow talent at the college level. I was at every tryout. I spoke very plainly with all coaches, directors and even one of my 20 year olds made it to the last cuts as a Goalie. Coolest thing is that Mo. City TX has produced this guy Mike from San Jac, Eric Quill a longtime MLS veteran and now Marcus Storey is back home with the 36ers.
Re: Houston Reserve Schedule Hutton is now listed on the roster on the web site. I understand it was a contract issue requiring a trade of a supplemental pick for KC to release rights even though KC did not re-sign him. Wonderful how the MLS is run, kind of screwy.....
Re: Houston Reserve Schedule Yep, if he's listed at $28k that makes him senior roster. So there are two reserve slots open with the Hutton signing. Or, they could sign a senior roster player and bump someone down to the Reserve roster (they did that last year, Goldthwaite was signed as a Senior player, then demoted to a Dev roster slot when Kelly Gray was traded for, and then promoted at the end of the year after Wes Hart retired).
Re: Houston Reserve Schedule Today's Dynamo Summary in the Chron mentions Wondo, among others, in updating the reserve team news:
Reserve game: Dynamo v Rapids Thanks. The official MLSnet.com report is up now: Rapids v Dynamo Reserves Here's the Dynamo line up: #1 Zach Wells, #4 Chris Aloisi, #5 Ryan Cochrane, #6 Kelly Gray, #3 Kevin Goldthwaite, #19 Patrick Ianni, #22 Stuart Holden, #7 Chris Wondolowski (#12 Julian Nash 61), #17 Mike Chabala (#23 Mpho Moloi 69), #26 Marcus Storey, #20 Ronald Cerritos Substitutes Not Used: #30 Martin Hutton Naldo apparently never made it to the reserve game. Maybe Naldo was just following bad instructions from Steve Sampson in LA or otherwise not well positioned to succeed there, but he never looked all that dangerous. We need some more depth at forward, but I'm not sure he'd be an adequate answer.
Re: Reserve game: Dynamo v Rapids Naldo wasn't signed - he couldn't get to Colorado for some reason. They were only trying to sign him for the game, not to a Developmental Roster spot (this according to some of the team we talked to after the Reserve Game). The Houston Reserves didn't look very good - it was obvious this was their first game together. Most guys were not match fit, and with the altitude, it really showed in the second half. Some bright spots, but an equal (if not larger) number of poor plays. The formation was: Wells Gray -- Cochrane -- Aloisi -- Goldthwaite Chabala -- Ianni -- Holden -- Wondolowski Storey -- Cerritos In the second half, Wondolowski switched with Storey, and then Nash came in at forward and Moloi came in at central midfield, and Holden moved to wing. Wondolowski was still nursing a sore knee (we heard the coach talking to him when he came out), this was Nash's first action in over a month because of his pulled hamstring. The defense (particularly Gray and Cochrane) was disappointing, considering that all of those guys have experience in MLS. In the first half, the offense created a few scoring chances, they just couldn't finish. But in the second half, the team did not play that well and Colorado controlled most of the play. The first Colorado goal came off a free kick caused by Goldthwaite pulling down the Colorado wing (on a play that was not very smart, as the Colorado player was still 30 yards away from the goal and not in any real threatening position). The second goal resulted from a rebound off Wells that none of the defenders could get to and Colorado was able to put in. While nobody was very impressive, Holden did some good things and seemed to know what he was doing out there. Certitos looked pretty good, and Aloisi was probably the best defender. Wondolowski, Storey and Cerritos combined on a couple of nice passing sequences, but they all had trouble finishing. Nash looked good on a couple of plays, but he ran out of gas really quickly (to be expected, having not played much for the past month).
Re: Houston Reserve Schedule thank god we have no interest in Naldo, that guy was much hated by G's fans...
Dallas vs Houston Reserves [R] Not sure if any other Houston fans stuck around to watch the Reserves match this evening; they played about half an hour after the main match finished. It was still brutally hot, and the Houston team has very limited subs, making it even harder. Some of the guys (Goldthwaite, Cochrane) who played pretty significant minutes in the main match had to come back out and play again. Match report here Anyway, Dallas won 3-0. It was much closer played than the score indicates, kind of similar to the last Reserve game in Colorado where the team ran out of gas in the second half, and Dallas scored twice in the second half (once on a PK with just a couple of minutes left). The Houston lineup was: ---- Wells ------ Gray --- Aloisi --- Ianni --- Goldthwaite ------ Moloi -------- Holden ---- Wondolowski ---- Chabala ------ Nash ------ Naldo (guest player) ------ Subs were Marcus Storey for Nash (about 60 minute mark; Storey played right wing, Wondolowski moved to forward, Chabala moved into the middle); Cochrane for Holden at about 70 minute mark, Ianni moved to central mid and Chabala moved back out wide. Houston generated several good scoring chances in the first half, with Wondolowski heading one just over the goal; Holden hitting the post; and Nash hitting the post. There were a couple of other chances, but those are the 3 I remember. I was surprised to see Storey go in so late and get so little playing time, but when he played he really didn't look very good. Lots of giveaways, and not a lot of energy. I wasn't so surprised to see his lack of playing time after seeing how he played. Kelly Gray was also not that impressive, he kept passing the ball directly to Dallas, either on long balls or on short passes. In contrast, on the left side, Goldthwaite connected several times on some nice passing combinations with Chabala, Wondolowski, and Moloi. Ianni also looked pretty good, he was noticeably better in this game than in the last game. Naldo is the guy who played for the LA Galaxy last year, Houston supposedly just signed him as a guest player for this game. He didn't do much, except get called offside at least 6 times (must have been a record for a single afternoon for Houston, with all of the offside calls in the main match, and then again in the Reserve match). Dallas scored their first goal in the first half, it was scored by Dax McCarthy. They scored their second goal about halfway through the second half, not sure who scored it. Their final goal was a PK that was awarded when they had a breakaway and Wells tripped the Dallas player. Wells was redcarded, and Houston played the last 5 minutes or so down a man. Wondolowski moved into the goal (I'm not sure why they didn't substitute their 3rd keeper, maybe he wasn't on the trip - tried to see if he was on the sidelines, but couldn't tell.) By the end of the game, the guys on both sides were really dragging - sitting out in the 95 degree heat for 2 hours during the regular game, and then playing a full game afterwards, definitely took it out of them. I thought the bright spots for Houston were Goldthwaite, Wondolowski, Chabala and Holden. They passed really well, particularly in the first half before they wore down. There were times when they gave the ball away, but the defense up the middle was pretty solid with Aloisi and Ianni (until the last part of the game). Nash and Moloi also did some good things, but I didn't notice them as much as the guys I noted above.
Re: Dallas vs Houston Reserves [R] Great report, as always. Could you tell if Naldo was mostly playing out on the wing, or more centrally?
Re: Dallas vs Houston Reserves [R] Thanks Sportsfan-Quakes - if you ever get to Houston for a game it would be great to meet you - your match reports are better than anything the professional writers do. Our third goalkeeper is up in Portland with the Timbers according to an article I read a week or two ago in the Chronicle.
Re: Dallas vs Houston Reserves [R] Were you there? It would have been great to meet you if I would have known. I couldn't stay for the reserve game, we had a dinner with the in-laws to get to and we all needed a shower... I guess that was the price I had to pay for someplace to sleep while I was there.
Re: Dallas vs Houston Reserves [R] Thanks for the report. It's good to hear someone's eye witness account of these games.
Re: Dallas vs Houston Reserves [R] Thanks for the heads up on this. Unfortunately, if that's what they call a "reserve" match then the reserve league isn't gonna be around long. When you have to scrap to get players to play and have to use some regulars who played THAT AFTERNOON, then it just isn't gonna work. Hard to pay players on the reserve squad when you can barely pay the low end players on your main roster. Either do it right or scrap it. Just my opinion.
Re: Dallas vs Houston Reserves [R] We do have several players out due to WC or injury, so that could have contributed to it.
Re: Dallas vs Houston Reserves [R] Strange - Portland already has an MLS goalkeeper on loan (Josh Saunders), so it's not likely that your guy would get to see any playing time. Moreover, the Timbers played today, and their backup GK was listed as Bayard Elfvin, who they have under contract. Why loan out a guy unless he's going to play?
Re: Dallas vs Houston Reserves [R] No, it is the Timbers. He has tried out but has not yet been officially loaned I believe. Pasted below is a short passage from the May 6 Houston Chronicle: ----- Reserve goalkeeper and Houston-area product Martin Hutton traveled to Oregon for a tryout with the Portland Timber of the United Soccer Leagues' First Division. If Hutton's tryout is satisfactory to the Timber, the Dynamo likely will loan Hutton to them, Dynamo coach Dominic Kinnear said. -----
Re: Dallas vs Houston Reserves [R] Cart before the horse. The Timbers will take a look at him and then, having assessed him, decide whether we even need to consider loaning him. The attraction of a MLS loan would be that he would be good enough to start or at least platoon, I'd assume. I don't think either team pulls the trigger on a deal for this keeper unless he will get the playing time or starting position you're worried about.......it makes no sense for Portland to soak up our salary on a loan for a benchwarmer, and no sense for us to have, much less loan out, a player who can't even start in the USL (we might as well cut him then, and get a real keeper). It sounds to me like we have a disgruntled backup backup backup keeper, useful for practices and such, wandering around looking for PT and that the best face to put on it is to shop it as a loan. He tries out for a succession of USL sides and if anyone actually bites, we call it a loan, tell them to pay his salary, and wash our hands of it unless he's suddenly good, in which case we snap him up and say that's why we signed im. He probably should have signed elsewhere first, and tried to work his way back up to MLS.
Re: Dallas vs Houston Reserves [R] Yeah, that was a big part of it. Most of the reserve games are on Sundays, the day after the regular game, at 10am local time. About once a year at each park they schedule the Reserve game right after the regular game, in the main stadium, I presume to draw attention to the fact that they have the Reserve league. Unfortunately for Houston, they have 2 of those in a row, both in places where it's likely to be quite hot (Dallas and Houston). With DeRo and Serioux out, this next weekend's Reserve game will have the team even more shorthanded. I'm guessing they look to sign one or two more guest players (or add to their Developmental roster - they're still two players short of the 28 that they can have).
Re: Dallas vs Houston Reserves [R] http://www.houstonsoccer.net/ there will be a reserve report up later today.