John van Buskirk relegated with Siegen from D3. Despite of that he is making a career move at the age of 32 again as he signed with 2.Bundesliga promoted RW Erfurt. van Buskirk usually plays forward, but occasionally is used as central defender. He scored 14 goals this season. Also Pellegrino Matarazzo is changing his club again and shifts from Regionalliga (D3) division North to South. After one year in Münster, where he avoided relegation on the last matchday, he returns to his ex-club SV Wehen. Matarazzo has always been a regular starter at both clubs, either as central defender or as defensive mid.
Wow -- has van Buskirk ever played that high up? Apart from Siegen I also have him as having played for LR Ahlen and KFC Uerdingen, but I don't think he's ever played at the B.2 level. Perhaps he is being brought in to provide experience, as he is in his early 30s now...
When van Buskirk was with Uerdingin, they were in the B.2 for at least part of the time. There was even talk of a possible call-up by Sampson. Or people were thinking maybe he should get a look. I was looking through an old school Soccer America that I had stored away and I think it was around 97-98. There was a nice artile on him in the magazine. There was a side bar that basically listed and did a little write up about US players who had played in Germany. Like Mathew Okoh was listed in the article as playing over there with someone in the article. Whatever.. I'm rambling a bit.
van Buskirk: 96/96 KFC Uerdingen, Bundesliga, 1 game 96/97 KFC Uerdingen, 2.Bundesliga, 19 games, 3 goals 97/98 KFC Uerdingen, 2.Bundesliga, 32 games, 5 goals 98/99 KFC Uerdingen, 2.Bundesliga, 8 games 99/00 LR Ahlen, Regionalliga, no data available 00/01 SF Siegen, Regionalliga, 27 games, 7 goals 01/02 SF Siegen, Regionalliga, 29 games, 11 goals 02/03 SF Siegen, Regionalliga, 27 games, 9 goals 03/04 SF Siegen, Regionalliga, 33 games, 14 goals Matarazzo: 01/02 SV Wehen, Regionalliga, 26 games, 1 goal 02/03 SV Wehen, Regionalliga, 32 games 03/04 Preußen Münster, Regionalliga, 23 games
Man, this will be van Buskirk's 10th season in Germany. That's a helluva run. What do players in the third division earn per season? Because, I bet he's earned a nice chunk of change playing there over the years, more than he would have likely made in MLS over the years.
What makes you think that a German 3rd Division player is good enough to play in MLS? Whatever happened to Joe Enochs?
Don't remember if Gibbs played in the 3rd division but he also played in the 2nd and 1st, and Twellman and Donovan played on 1st division amateur teams (as opposed to actual 3rd division teams).