Sunday, November 28, 2010

A few updates

Over the past few weeks there have been some pretty big news in regards to the Revs, like Taylor Twellman retiring. What else can be said about him? Arguably the greatest Rev of all time and the face of the franchise. Sure, there have been other players who might of had better careers, John Harkes comes to mind, but in terms of a career with the Revs I'd have to say Twellman is the best. If I had to pick one thing about Twellman that defined him I'd say it was his goal scoring ability. He was a great goal scorer. If he had a chance to score, he scored. You can't teach that, just ask David Trezeguet. It's unfortunate that his career had to come to an end the way it did.

The expansion draft came and went with the Revs not losing anyone. I was a bit surprised as I expected them to lose someone.

The Revs have changed their approach to finding a DP stating that they are now looking for players who will help on the field as opposed to helping both on the field and filling the seats. The team has even stated that they might sign two low range DP's. If they can find two DP's who can help the team win and improve the quality of play then more people will come to games. If you can field a team that plays solid soccer you're going to draw soccer fans.

Here's an interesting article with our old friend Jeff Larentowicz. So yeah, he pretty much buried the organization. I would've loved it if the Revs were able to keep him. He made $150,000 last year. For that amount of money the Revs should've kept him. We all know what type of player he is and what to expect from him. Not sure why the Revs didn't want him for that type of money.

Speaking of Larentowicz, he did win the MLS cup the other day. I thought the final was a very entertaining game. It was a fun game to watch. Not the best played game, but a good time, a solid game for a final.

I don't agree with the idea of having a home team for the final. I like having it played at a neutral ground and I think it should continue to be that way. However, I think the league is going to move away from that and have a home team every year going forward.

I don't like the idea of expanding the playoffs to 10 teams. I think it should stay at eight, at least for another year.

The World Cup sites will be chosen in the next few days. I don't support the Spain-Portugal bid. Spain shouldn't be co-hosting a World Cup, they are more than capable of hosting it by themselves. Portugal would only have 2 cities hosting the World Cup, they'd be Spain's little side kick. I don't like it. I think they actually have a good chance of getting it though.

-Andrew

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Revolution Sign Fagundez

The Revolution have signed their first ever home grown player, Diego Fagundez. This is something that I'm very excited about. I'm not a big believer in college soccer. I don't think it prepares players enough for the pro game. Don't get me wrong, I think college soccer is the right choice for many players, but if the league and the national team want to get better then having a good junior system in place is very important. Hopefully the Revs make another signing or two (not sure how many U-18 players they're allowed to have on the roster) like this. This is something I need to look more into, but I'm wondering what Fagundez is allowed to do and what he's not allowed to do. Can he play in regular season games? Can he play in the PDL this summer if the Revs don't think he'll be playing much? I'm not sure about all of this. MLS today announced that they're bringing back the reserve league which I'm sure Fagundez will see some action in.

As for Fagundez, I've never seen him play but lets take a look at what we know about him. He was born in Uruguay and lives in Leominster (pretty common as there is a good size Uruguayan community in that area). Leominster has a strong soccer program at its high school and has seen many good Uruguayan players come through there. Most notably in recent years was Gary Rocca. Not sure what happened to him, had a very good high school career but I have no idea what happened after that. I've seen a lot of these kids play, I've played with a lot of them, and I've played against them. There's certainly a lot of talent in that region. It's very safe to say that if Fagundez was chosen out of that group of kids to play on the Revs and then sign with the Revs, then he's a very good prospect to have. Like I said, I think this is a great signing and it shows the players in Massachusetts that the Revs are serious about looking at players in this region and signing those players to contracts. Hopefully we'll get to see Fagundez at some point in 2011 and see what he can do. I'm looking forward to it.

-Andrew