Europe goal for Brown By Gus Martins, Bostno Herald, 3/16/04 http://sports.bostonherald.com/soccer/view.bg?articleid=104
So if his one v one skills are back all he has to do is work on his god-awful distribution and he might end up being a contributor again. My prediction is that Joseph ends up on the back line starting with Peirce. Carlos is third man in and Kante catches splinters.
Chris Brown's comments are particularly revealing I think. You can see that Nicol's brand of management has the players thinking like coaches/looking at the big picture (i.e., being versatile increases my chances of being brought with the away squad, and, consequently getting playing time). This is something players usually prefer not to do, but show a surprising aptitude for when there is competition for their position. Good sign. We'll have to see it translates on the field. As for Kante, we'll have to see. He played some real stinkers last year - and I don't recall lack of aggressiveness being the real problem. I'm sure hoping he's right, but has he been mentioned in any of the game lineups from the Azores so far?
Somehow those "god-awful" distribution skills didn't prevent us from coming within a crossbar of a championship in '02. If that comment is based on last season, I don't think there's anyone who would dispute that he had an awful year. But, at his age, with a physique that no one on the Revs (let alone the league) can match, he still has a tremendous upside. It remains to be seen whether he'll return to his 2002 form and progress from there. My prediction is that Joseph will play exactly where he did last season (especially figuring in that he has missed most all of training camp up to this point).
I'd expect the opening day line-up to be the following: GK: Brown RB: Heaps CB: Pierce CB: Llamosa LB: Franchino RM: Ralston DM: Joseph AM: Cancela LM: Kamler/Baker* FW: Twellman FW: J.M. Moore * Dependent on the injury status of Kamler The Magpie
Two slots left in RevMFLS. http://www.mfls.com/ Division: RevMFLS password: soopah For news and information: http://martnet.com/~jgoodwin/revmfls/ Anyone know if there is still a Revolution email discussion list? If so, I'd appreciate a pointer to it. Probably a good idea to put one post on RevMFLS on it before calling it a day.
Just for perspective, let's compare The Magpie's 2004 lineup with the 2003 opening day lineup: 2004 - - - - - - 2003 GK: Brown- - - - Brown RB: Heaps- - - - Heaps CB: Pierce - - - Pierce CB: Llamosa- - - Llamosa LB: Franchino- - Franchino RM: Ralston- - - Ralston DM: Joseph - - - Cullen AM: Cancela- - - Hernandez LM: Kamler - - - Kamler FW: Twellman - - Twellman FW: J.M. Moore - Harris I'd call that an upgrade....
Have we EVER gone into a season looking at potentially (if Kamler is healthy) NO NEW STARTERS??!! That starting lineup is basically what we would have played last year at the end of the year if everyone was healthy. I also call that real stability for the first time in Revs history.