MNT January Camp

The United States Men's National team played a scrimmage against the under 23 team on January thirteenth as part of their January camp. The camp is a good opportunity for Jurgen Klinsmann to tryout new players and pairings for the full squad, in preparation for upcoming international matches. The full team is composed of several first timers, like Graham Zusi (Sporting Kansas City) and Jeff Parke (Seattle Sounders). The game concluded with the full team beating the U23's 4-0. The goal scorers for the MNT were Chris Wondolowski, Benny Feilhaber, Teal Bunbury, and Graham Zusi.

Highlights included.

SuperDraft Aftermath

As expected, Andrew Wenger (Duke) and Darren Mattocks (Akron) were the first two draft picks. Chandler Hoffmann was allowed to slip all the way to the thirteenth round, which was a bit of a surprise (link to full draft is posted below).


UCSB teammates Luis Silva and Sam Garza were selected in the first round of the draft. Their excellent combine performances explain why they were picked so much earlier than originally projected. Silva was picked 4th overall by Toronto FC, and Garza was selected 6th by San Jose. These players bring great speed, vision, and skill with them, and Big West Soccer fans can take pride watching them continue to develop.


The LA Galaxy picked up a defender and a midfielder,  selecting Tommy Meyer (Indiana) in the nineteenth round and Kenney Walker (Louisville) in the 38th. This will help to rebuild their roster after failing to sign Juninho and losing Omar Gonzales due to injury.


The Supplemental draft is the last step for the remaining combine players, and international players like Jason Banton and Kohei Yamada will most likely be selected during this process. Big West players like Patrick Sigler and James Kiffe still have a chance for selection during this draft, and hopefully the conference will be able to boast a few more professionals after the Supplemental draft has taken place.


Super Draft results courtesy of mlssoccer.com


http://www.mlssoccer.com/superdraft/2012/roundbyround

2012 Draft Predictions and Wish-List

After the MLS combine concluded earlier this week, I took a break to re-watch some of the highlights, and digest some of the talk around the league about various players. With just over an hour remaining before the draft, I felt now would be a good time to issue my final thoughts and wish-list for the 2012 Major League Soccer Draft.

A New MLS Conference Possibility

With the announcement of an unbalanced schedule this year, the Eastern and Western conferences will play more purposeful roles than they have in past seasons. MLS seems to be moving away from the idea of a single table format this season. League expansion, season length, and the geographical size of the league have all been sited as reasons that a conference system is better for MLS. With that being said, what possibilities does the league have to develop towards? The league could, and probably will, stay in the East/West format that it is in currently in, but how many teams can be added before we run into season length issues again? The league could split the conferences into 2 divisions as more teams are added, but this will require the league to grow fairly large, maybe to a size that isn't sustainable. Instead, the more interesting option for league may be creating a 3 conference system.