Here we are basking in the glow of yet another MLS Cup, a return to glory, giving thanks to the Jaime's and Christian's, and Ryan's of the soccer world when Thanksgiving rolls around and vicious nightmares of turkeys- the god damn awful DCU players of yore wake us screaming from our daydreams. It's time to face facts. DCU has played a whole bunch of alleged humans that couldn't make an U-9 "everyone plays" league. These are the players that, if their parents could still stand to watch they would be pleading to the coach get them off the field. Interestingly though there are a couple of categories of badness here. Some of these players actually had a DCU coach thinking they were acceptable and they played a bunch of games. On the other hand, some of these soccer freaks of nature were just emergency callups. Still others were recommended from some other respected soccer "expert" and the team stupidly signed them sight unseen. So what I'll do here is make two teams. The first team consists of guys who actually played a fair amount, though god knows why. Maybe they had pictures of the coach, maybe the coach's wife had a certain "fondness" for them. Maybe the coach was just flat-out insane. Maybe whenever the coach who the player was, they would cleverly reply, "Marco Etcheverry". I don't know, I'm just a poor fan who was subjected to multiple games of these... these..: Handmaidens of the metrostars Captain: Lazo Alavanja ----------------------------Doug Warren Judah Cooks------Galin Ivanov---David Stokes---Scott Vermillion ------------------------------Eric Imler Lazo Alavanja----------------------------------------Jason Moore ---------------------------Antonio Otero ---------------Mike Burke-----------------Roy Lassiter, part deux On the bench: Mark Watson, David Hayes, Jose Alegria, Mike Slivinski, RDA, part deux Note: The "Rocket" Roy listed here was the second edition of Roy from 2002. Same with RDA. There you have it. Don't try to tell me that some of these players are out of position- that's the spirit of this thing! Now comes those players who Todd would spit upon, players who couldn't dislodge Kelly Riles from his right-back spot, players you associate with projectile vomiting, players who didn't get much playing time because, well, they sucked big ones: Abominations of Nature Captain: George Gelnatovich ------------------------Clint Baumstark Micah Cooks-------Thor Lee-----Arnold Cruz------Said Fazlagic -----------------------George Gelnovatch Trevor Perea----------------------------------Devin Barclay ------------------------Lyle Yorks --------Juan Berthy Suarez------------Sergio Salas Bench: Ben Crawley, Sterling Wescott, Joey Thieman, Mike Huwiler, Danny Care, Curt Onalfo. Note: Jorge Geddes would have been here IF he had actually played a minute. He didn't. And for that we are eternally grateful to Ray Hudson for that. Also, a case could be made to include one Kevin Ara here, but, you see, I co-mod another forum with The Knave, so, well, you understand... So what do ya think? Got any fond memories? If so, shouldn't you be in St. Elizabeths? Got any disagreements? Do you think any of these, er, "men" are not worthy of inclusion? Let's here it if you are man enough!
Juan Berthy Suarez....hijo de poota** singlehandedly embarrassed every Bolivian in the greater DC area. Thank God Marco and Jaime came here and set the record straight. **Although he ended up at The Strongest a few years later and helped us win the Championship.
Yeah- I'd be laughing my ass off if I didn't remember that they had Rongen before us. Unlike the mutual hatred between the metro and United, the hate with the revs is deep as the seemingly placid ocean. It was a tough choice between Warren and Causey. What decided it for me was the fact that United never won with Warren in goal.
As I understand it after seeing Suarez play a bill was introduced in to the Senate (SB 666) that would have banned all Bolivians from the USA forever. Thank god for Marco and Jaime as the bill died in committee.
But he did - although only myself, K, GrillMaster, Red&Black, and a few others saw it, because it was in the untelevised Wednesday night Open Cup loss to the Metros at Rutgers last year. It happened after Warren was red-carded on a breakaway for taking down the forward. He looked like a deer in the headlights and certainly was shaky, but he played VERY tough and earned my respect that night. Suarez sucked so bad here...but then again, so did most of that early '96 group. Gelnovatch was a right back, and was infinitely worse than either Cooks brother or anyone else on this list. If we're going to talk about "eras" where good players sucked, mid-'96 Tony Sanneh (right after he was acquired) is a good candidate. That's when he got the name "Feet of Stone"...
Exactly. Has there ever been a goalie who has had as many professional starts as he has and never won a game? Let us all continually remind him of that whenever he returns to RFK.
All skill aside, Mark Lisi heads my all-time turkey list for that crap he pulled with kissing the Metro shield. What a turkey. Like the banner said, "Hey Lisi, Kiss This!"
Aside from the deep fried birds, I'm most proud of making that banner. Everyone took all the good ones. Thanks for noticing. I'm glad that chump is gonna waste away in the Swamp.
That's the whole problem. He didn't play. He dogged it here and pretty much gave up. He's a decent enough player with an ego problem. In hindsight I'm glad his ass shipped out. It opened the door for Marco. And the rest as they say, is history.
Ach! I forgot all about the Open Cup! Thanks for the correction! Gelnovatch- I never did see him, but from all I've heard he was so very very bad. Maybe I'll put up a "who's the worst all-time" poll: I presume he'd win it. As I recall also, Llamosa wasn't exactly the best in his early days either, but I'm not including players who got much better or worse- unless like Rocket Roy or RDA they came back after a leave of absence.
I'd say the same, but there was a respected poster (who shall remain nameless) who thought KK deserved to be on the third place all-time best team I put up earlier this week. Go figure. So I just left him off where he remains with the Clint Peay's of DCU lore....
Where's the love for Chris Albright? I'm not talking about the guy who played right fullback against Jamaica the other night. I mean the guy who spent a couple of years on our front line and was supposed to continue the goalscoring tradition established by our other forwards in our first 4 years.
Chris Albright...brings back shudders, don't it? I thought of him, really I did. In the end though he missed these teams as he just wasn't quite bad enough. It was close though, but if I put him on then I'd have to find room for Dennis Ludwig, and the team was getting just too crowded. Besides, in retrospect I think that even in 2000, Rongen (and probably Arena) was thinking that this guy wasn't really a forward but more of a winger of some sort as even then he played a few games in the midfield. But I can understand the sentiment for his nomination for these teams. It's funny how, when talking about that Convey kid, some folks note that the four years that Bobby was with the team coincided with the four years that the team failed to make the MLS Cup. But what I see was that the team depended on Albright so much in 2000 and 2001 and not only he failed to deliver but the team also failed to find someone who could (unlike '96 with Suarez and Moreno) and this really set the tone for a few years of ineptitude. Yeah, I know- I can't blame everything on Chrissy, but he was a big factor. Well after writing the above I really should have put him on the "Handmaidens of the metrostars" team in place of Lassiter. Again, I stand corrected.
i don't see how you can possibly suggest a worst all time xi without albright on it. he was absolutely the foulest player ever to wear the shirt. he sucked the life out of every other player on his side. he was a vortex of incompetence and poor attitude and to top it off he was the biggest ********** in the league. he was a tragedy of his own making--all the talent in the world without the heart or brains to harvest much out of it. edit--didnt you used to be able to write pu$$y(ss) on this board and it spelled out? what, are you getting nasty letters from that bastard m. powell? i think it is somewhat unreasonable to have board about football and its players and not be able to use that word--it is simply the only word that describes certain aspects of the game and its players.
I wish this thread had not been started. Our support of the team should focus on the positives and the negatives of the current team. However, if we include potential and the nonrealization of it, Convey is the winner, hands-down. GM
Albright deserves mention on the list not so much for his offensive ineptitude (it didn't take a scouting genius to see that he should be converted to a defender) but what we had to give up to get him. I'm sure there's somebody here who can recite the trades involved but didn't we essentially have to ship out Lassiter to get Albright and then when Albright wasn't getting the job done, we had to make another trade to bring in a used up RDA? It hurts to see Doug Warren on the list. In the few times I met him he seemed like a helluva nice guy. Unfortunately, he never did win a game.
Yes, we had cap problems. Of course we didn't have to trade Rocket Roy; we could have traded one of several players. So in retrospect it was an incrediably boneheaded decision to go into the 2000 season with Moreno and either Wood or Albright as the starting forwards and reserve. Because of that I didn't include Albright: Yeah he was bad, but not nearly as bad as some other forwards. In 2000 he was better than AJ Wood, who's also not on my teams. It was just poor management decisions that cast him in such an unfavorable light.
Talentwise, Albright doesn't belong on our all-time worst XI. But as far as overall impact on the team he might be #1. But as Ursula pointed out, the team management deserves much of the blame (sorry, GM - I mean they deserve the credit!). Albright gets the special Heath Shuler Award for having a central role in the horror classic, When Good Teams Go Bad. But, like Shuler, he had people in supporting roles who made decisive contributions in helping him clinch the award.
I wouldn't put Cannon on the list, if for no other reason than he was never going to be more than a one-game player.