Revolution rookies

The featured article on Revolutionsoccer.net is an article on three rookies: Schilawski, Sinovic, and Boggs. It touts this rookie class, as well as draft classes of years past under Nicol and Burns.

I agree with the general message of the article: these three rookies have been pretty good. However, it seems as though there isn't much else the team could have published in terms of positive publicity. These players' emergence is a silver lining in an otherwise sloppy season thus far (8 points through 9 games).

The article points out that Sinovic has slipped under the radar a bit. In fact, it includes a quote from Sinovic himself, in which he agrees with this characterization of his rise. To the casual MLS fan, or the fan of a different MLS club, yes there has been less to-do made of him than of Schilawski. However, I know Andrew and I personally mentioned what a solid player Sinovic was during the home opener, and I think fans of the Revolution in particular have really appreciated what he's done so far.

The article also points to the relatively greater amount of attention Zak Boggs has received than Sinovic, saying, "Attacking players have always been the center off attention." This explanation is probably more applicable to Schilawski than Boggs. I think the reason so much was made of Boggs's emergence about six weeks into the season is that when the Revs drafted him, he wasn't anywhere near that spot in the so-called experts' draft forecasts. When Brad Feldman interviewed Ives Galarcep about the Revs' first few picks, Ives had nothing on him because he didn't expect to have to talk about him so soon.

And finally, it's strange that we can point to so many good young players (Barnes, Alston, and Tierney included, who are 2nd years), and still have a pretty bad team. Part of the problem is Shalrie Joseph's absense, whose importance was clearly on display in the Toronto game. But they shouldn't be THIS bad without him. I'm not as anti-Nicol as Andrew is, but I wouldn't be surprised to find myself in that camp by July if this team's disparate talent doesn't gel by then.

Anyway, it's a pretty decent article, and has some quotes from Sinovic as well as Preston Burpo. I just wanted to throw my two cents in.

-John