Bon_Mot

Uhhhh, HELLO!!! You guys are forgetting about the Legendary Rob Bledsoe! The '91 graduate of Nederland played at Tyler Junior College... Well, he didn't actually play a whole lot, but he got a uniform! The West Brook team from '90 put a few guys in schools. Chris Swanson, the District MVP, played at Mary Hardin Baylor (I think) with Chris Britton. And Brian Brady went to Tyler JC, and then to the University of Tennessee (maybe?). Other Nederland grads who went on to play somewhere: Wade Breaux (early 90s) played at like 20 different schools. Alright, that's a little bit of a hyperbole, but he played at TJC (with Cucia?), The Citadel, some school in Mississippi or Alabama, club at Lamar... He's in the Bryan/College Station area last I heard still involved with soccer. I think Jared Newton (mid 90s) played somewhere. And maybe another keeper from NHS went off. Brent Gallagher (95?), argueably one of the best players ever at Nederland, played somewhere in the South, I think. I think Jared Wilbanks (mid 90s) played somewhere in Kansas. Blake Judice (04?) played at Texas Lutheran. Corey Speed (04?) played in Kansas. Zach Wallace (05?) played at TJC. I know I've missed a few.

[Hidden Content] There are a few good ones. I had to vote for Davy's long range bomb, but check these out, too: Wk 3 Sacha Wk 5&8 Gallardo Wk 7 Blanco Wk Razov Wk 17 Angel Wk 30 Will Johnson

The Dynamo have a huge game tonight (Oct. 28) in the CONCACAF Champions League against Luis Angel Firpo of El Salvador. They need a win or draw to stay afloat and advance to the next round. The game is on tonight at 9:00 on FSC. Standings: [Hidden Content] The MLS Cup 2008 Play-offs start this weekend. Western Conference preview: [Hidden Content] Eastern Conference preview: [Hidden Content] Freddie Ljungberg is set to join Kasey Keller on Seattle's new MLS franchise. [Hidden Content] Landon Donovan says he's ready to go to the EPL or La Liga or possibly join Jurgen Klinsmann at Bayern Munich at the winter transfer window. [Hidden Content] With Beckham in Italy and LandyCakes in Europe, too, things are looking just awesome for the traveling circus that the Galaxy has become! This is pretty cool: [Hidden Content] It's a map of the nationalities of players in the MLS.

Soccer player from Nederland. Really?

OOOF! That was a stomach punch! Really. The WNBA? Really?

The schedule for the Brenham 4A Showcase has been released. This is probably the top non-5A tournament in the entire state. Several area teams will finally get the opportunity to go back now since the size of the districts has been reduced. Go to the "Brenham 4A Showcase" link on the left: [Hidden Content] Nederland's schedule: St. Stephen's Soccer Academy ([Hidden Content]) Houston Scarborough (Third in HISD district behind Reagan and Sharpstown last year) Regents (TAPPS school out of Austin) Montgomery

Well-planned rebutal. Touche! Just wait. Central and South American players are starting to realize that the MLS is a viable option to play. It might not be followed as passionately, but there's no question about whether you're gonna get paid at the end of the month or not. Another thing that that a few of them enjoy - and this the definition of irony - is the anonimity that they get here. Juan Toja, while he was here, talked about it. Bullets, it'd be like you living at the circus. You'd be just another clown in the crowd...

Alright, Grumpy Gus, what's wrong with the MLS? The SuperLiga was a huge success the past two seasons. The CONCACAF Champions League has been pretty good so far with 2 USL teams currently 1st in their group. [Hidden Content](Which shows that there IS enough talent in the US to expand and compete with the rest of the region.) The MLS will never be La Liga, The EPL, Serie A... but they're comparable skill-wise with the Scandanavian leagues and other smaller Euro leagues. One of the big problems with feeder leagues like the MLS is that as soon as a youngster shows some potential, large sums of money are thrown at him. What the MLS needs is roster expansion to accomodate an overloaded schedule and a loosening of the salary cap a bit. And maybe do away with the SuperDraft. It's not so super any more.

Philly and Seattle are coming to the league in the next couple of years. Who should be next? [Hidden Content]

Anyone who underestimates Central this season will pay for it.

You've got a bright future ahead of you!

In between plays of the Florida v LSU game, don't forget the USMNT [Hidden Content] are playing Cuba at 6:00 on ESPN Classic. The Bob called up some youngsters, so if we can get a decent lead you might see some new blood on the field ([Hidden Content]) including young Texas-born Francisco Torreshttp://voices.washingtonpost.com/soccerinsider/2008/10/breaking_news_torres_commits_t.html who we desparately need to cap before Mexico does. Also in the news concerning the game, two more Cuban soccer players "are missing" [Hidden Content] in D.C. That makes 7 defections of Cuban soccer players to the US since March. Talk about a home field advantage!

Minimal damage to the house. We're chillin on the Medina River outside of Bandera now. Let me know how we can help once we get back home.

The board has been dead for the past week or so... [Hidden Content] We're playing World Cup Qualifiers against Cuba and T&T in the next week. Many people (including me) aren't happy with The Bob's selections - especially at forward. [Hidden Content]

The playoff brackets for the 2009 season were posted recently. Region 3 has some interesting paths to the regional tournament because some "districts" are empty now. They're empty now so that they can be easily filled as more 3A's adopt soccer. These are the empty districts in our region: 34, 36, 39, and 47. That will lead to byes for some teams in the first two rounds, and will also mean some teams won't see a higher seed until the later rounds. One such quirk I noticed is that the runner up AND fourth place finishers in District 33 AND 35 are guaranteed not to see a district champion until the (Fourth Round) Regional Quarter Finals. Many teams might actually have a much easier path to the regional tournament by finishing second or third! The brackets also essentially divided the region into a north and south half around houston. We will be going with the northern half, so our area won't get a chance to see a team like Friendswood, Kingwood Park, Crosby, Angleton, HISD teams, or the "Hwy 59 South" teams until the Regional Final game. Here's the playoff link. It's very small, and remember to mark out Districts 34, 36, 39, and 47: [Hidden Content] And here's our region: [Hidden Content]

Did you see Dempsey give Big Bradley attitude when he was subbed out? Clint either needs to mix in more naps or drink more coffee. While his heel flicks and step-overs are great for the YouTube generation, his work rate is garbage. I had a hard time watching the game. Literally and figuratively! What did they use for the stadium lights? Glow sticks? Fire-flies in jars? It was way too dark. Carlos "El Pescadito" Ruiz is by far my least favorite player on the planet. What's sad is that supposedly the guys at KC said that off the pitch, he's a super guy. Honor and integrity are not a part of his soccer vocabulary though. The official was out of his depth, too. He was blowing calls both ways all night. Getting three points in Central America is HUGE! Good job guys... eventhough we still can't score from the run of play.

Vidor, Lumberton, Livingston, Silsbee, Hardin Jefferson, and Jasper. WO-S, LC-M, PN-G, Nederland, Central, and Ozen. Top four from each district will make the playoffs next year.

Coach Corea and I set up a game for January. I don't have my calendar, but it's either Tuesday the 20th or the 27th I think. The PNG Tournament (the last weekend of January on the new turf!) should allow for some interdistrict match-ups, too.

OH! That makes sense then. I was out of town and had the article read to me. People asking me about it thought he was a freshman this past year. Well, welcome aboard, Edduardo!

...who the young man written about in the PA News is? Edwardo Martinez, Jr.? It says he played football and soccer at Nederland. If that's true, I've got to be the most unobservant person on the planet!

According to FIFA rules, a player must ask for permission to leave the field. Otherwise he is considered still a part of the action. This would be the ruling had the player left the field on the sideline, too, I think. This is a FIFA rule, but I don't know if it is a UIL rule, as well.

The fact that EJ played the entire game and his most memorable moment was a missed header from the 6 forces me to knock him. I think everyone has figured out that this guy can't create his own shot unless you give him a lot of space. What's his strongest attribute? It's time to explore other options, in my opinion.

I wanted to marinate a little before I responded to the game... Five good things from the game: 1. Freddy Adu is clearly one of the only creative players we have in our player pool. He's got vision, touch, draws fouls... a perfect Attacking Mid. 2. With the roster that Bunker Bob had to work with, I thought the 4-5-1 was a good choice. 3. The US has an embarrassing stockpile of topnotch keepers. 4. ehhh... They tried to knock the ball around a few times. I think they even strung together 4 or 5 passes until Lil Bradley lost it once. 5. uhhhh... well... They looked stylish in their A&F looking uni's? (Does that count as a point on the "good" side?) Five bad things from the game. 1. I guess this is why he's called Bunker Bob, but good gosh, what did we learn from this game? How not to get embarrassed. (Congrats on that, though. The Mexicans getting beat 4-1 by Argentina is embarrassing. HE HE!) Other than Adu, this team shows absolutely no inclination to take anyone on 1v1 or have any idea what a "killer pass" is. I wish someone kept a stat of "Number of passes forward vs. Number of passes sideways or backwards". I guess it doesn't help when EJ is your guy up front. He and Frankie will never be lumped together in the "work rate" category. Why don't we just line up in a 10-0-0 next game, and then we can work really hard for that set piece goal or counter attack? 2. Clint Dempsey! Take a break. If you are that uninspired or fatigued, you don't need to wear the colors. 3. Are Gooch and Boca our only Center Backs? Does Bob have a plan if one of these guys gets hurt... or when all of CONCALAF figures out that speedy forwards who dribble straight at them give these guys hell. 4. Lil Bradley. Dude. Stay on your feet. Almost every time you slide-tackle, I cringe and convince myself that "Maybe it wasn't that bad. Let's look at it from another angle." And then the replay from a different angle makes it look worse! If you're tired, ask your daddy to take yourself off of the field. There are options to getting a break other than a red card. It's called a substitution. 5. Bob, you brought Josh Wolff on the field again. I'm not sure where you're getting your information from, but just in case you're reading this...Josh Wolff is not good. He couldn't score for the Second Division Bundesliga team that just cut him, either. You had an opportunity to bring someone / anyone into camp when Landy Cakes got hurt. You chose Mastroeni, Bob. He plays D-mid, just like your son, Edu, and Rico Clark who were already invited to camp. I'm not real good at math, but that gives you 4 guys for one position - let's go ahead and say 2 since we all know you're gonna go with 2 D-mids. Anyway, your forward options were Josh Kitten (unemployed), Nate Jaqua (unemployed), and EJ (Got ONE shot on goal this season for Fulham! ONE!) and you brought in another D-mid who flew across the Atlantic to play 5 minutes. Good luck against Argentina!!!

This is a fun site if you've got a little time on your hands. You can access a map that shows all of the teams in a particular league from all over the world. Did you know that there will be SIX teams from London in the EPL. Can you imagine New York with SIX MLB or NBA teams?! [Hidden Content]

Even if Spain "experiments" with their line-up, I see Bunker Bob and Co. getting abused. I think it might get embarrasing at times. I still think we can get a goal off a set piece or counter, but I wouldn't be surprised at a 4-1 scoreline. The US is just not that good. I would consider the Yanks one of the better Third Tier teams of the world. The CONCALaugh is waaay behind Europe and South America, and probaly behind Africa at his point. I don't even think the US would make it out of the group stage of EURO '08. I think Project 2010 might be off by about 8 to 12 years... Unless the US looks good today, then I will edit this post accordingly!