Player Combine Central defeats East 4-1 in first match. I have seen the future and his name is Guillermo. More details tonight on our site. U20 vs West next. Levesque and Jaqua face Cochrane and Marshall.
Thanks for the update, any idea who the goal scorers were? It sounds like Guillermo had a good game..keep the reports coming
I belive that the Central team is "adidas mania" coached by Ray Hudson and the DC United staff. If that's correct, then the East team is "adidas X-3's" coached by Greg Andrulis and the Columbus Crew staff. Congrats to Hudson, but IMHO, he also has the most talented squad. I eagerly look forward to the article. -Tron
Just a few impressions I had from today: -1st game-Shavar Thomas is by far the best defender here. Would be a top 5 pick is he was a US player. Stokes is solid in the air but has problems with quick defenders. Diego Walsh was very impressive as an attacking mid. Westfield has two nice finishes and was generally impressive. Memo's free kick goal was nice (and he was overall impressive) but an MLS keeper would have saved it (Behonik was absoultely awful today). Noonan was surprisingly good as a right mid. X-3 team really lacks talent of other teams. -2nd game-Few subs so several players saw no action. 2nd half was pretty bad as they did not switch game away from Hilton and it got fairly dark with no lights. Rico Clark looks like a stud d-mid to me. Justin Mapp was best player on the field. Liked what I saw from Chad Marshall (he really should have come out for MLS). Klaas is impressive going forward (not so much defending). Reminds me of Cherundolo. Magee is not going to be a forward in MLS. Looked OK as an attacking mid. Jaqua is big but not real agile. Scored a nice header on a corner from Dunivant. Didn't think much of Futagaki as a left back. Kind of liked what I saw from Jewsbury as a central mid. Joy, Tranchilla, Pierce and Lawrence did not play. -General impressions-much higher standard of play than last year in both games. Really good crowd too.
Any reviews on the following guys: Brian Carroll (may be with U-23's in Portugal) Ricky Lewis (ditto) Alex Blake Logan Pause (ditto) Hayden Woodworth Heath Pierce
read my report for news on woolworth,he was a big surprise today. lewis, levesque, carroll and stokes leave after tomorrow to join U23s in portugal. pearce did not play, i think the u20 matches may be using legit sub rules. (at least no reentry, unlike the first game) pause hurt in the first minute, came in later but i don't think he played that much. carroll received a yellow and had some other "crunching challenges." lewis quiet but steady. Blakeplayed, but i think just a bit.
Yeah, I was kind of dejected, checking espn/soccernet and mlsnet and no report. You'd think someone at the league could have a computer somewhere where they could write a couple freakin paragraphs or something.
X3's never even had a chance in this game. I don't care what you put out there, not much is going to get by Stokes and Thomas. They both will be world class players very soon. I just hope it works out that the Crew can get one. If the Crew got Thomas, from my lips to Gods ear's, they could switch to a 3-5-2 and onward to total world domination. I can see it all clearly, Crew defeats ManU, Arsenal, embaresses Real Madrid and Bayern Leverkusan. Puff Puff Pass Man, Puff Puff Pass. Your messing up the rotation.
And then that happy day will come when a club like ManU comes to America and ducks MLS sides so their confidence won't be shaken. BTW, was that mold on the rye bread?
more good stuff today - U20s win 2-1 over the east, and the west and central draw 1-1, with Westfield scoring his third of the Combine. More info later on www.topdrawersoccer.com
After his freshman year I thought he would have been a really impressive pro winger. Maybe he's got a future as another big flank player in the Chris Klein mold -- skillful, athletic, isn't afraid to play defense -- if it doesn't work out up front.
I enjoyed the Noonan interview but this was a stupid question - No National Team yet for Pat Noonan. Why? Because he was born in 1980 and hasn't been age-eligible for a youth national team since the summer after his freshman year and that summer - 2000 - the only team he was age-eligible for was the Olympic team and since he didn't play for Clive Charles, there was no way he was gonna make a team loaded with pros with only 1 year of college under his belt. Trust me, if Noonan had been a few months younger and been born in 81 instead of 80, he'd be a stalwart of the current crop of youth national team players. Not to get this too off topic, but I think US Soccer has to do something to address players in situation's like Noonan's who spend 4 years in college but, because of when they were born, don't get any youth national-team call-ups. These players basically fall through the cracks and miss out on all the development and experience that comes from being a youth international player. Since our youth national team's are geared - and rightly so - to FIFA championships, there isn't much the USSF can do to change the age-requirements. But, what I would love to see the USSF do is re-emphasize the World Univeristy Games teams - we used to compete in this regularly through 1997 - which has no age requirements and only requires that players be enrolled at a college. This wouldn't be as high a level as the World Youth Championships or the Pan-Am Games or whatever, but it would be better than nothing, which is what we currently have. But I digress. Back to Noonan, I agree with Dave that he can be a very good right mid and I think the comparisons with Chris Klein are very good, and not just because they both went to IU.
I think it was an interesting question, but very poorly asked. Basically, he left it up to Noonan to explain what it took you five paragraphs or so to do. He could have asked: Do you feel shortchanged because your birthday just happens to fall in between the cutoff dates for some key youth national teams? A year either way, and you could have taken part in XXXX program. Or something like that. But it was so vague and snappy (a TV/radio type question) we're left wanting unless you understand the system. Another situation where MLSnet could benefit from running some streaming video. They have with other interviews.
Hayden Woodworth (Messiah College) While it's comes as no surprise to Messiah College fans and D-III fans that he is making a good showing, I can understand why he would be a surprise to everyone else. Sounds like he continued to impress on Day 2. Your Day 2 write-up says he "continued to impress with his distribution and ability to ride tackles and keep possession." That sounds exactly like the player us Messiah fans have been watching these past four years. Hayden is the most complete 2-way player I have ever seen in D-III soccer, and it's great to see him getting this chance to show what's he's capable of. BTW, his name is spelled: Hayden Woodworth.