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SBI is heading to Florida (MLS notes)

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Hello folks. I am on a plane and about to take off for lovely Ft. Lauderdale, Florida ahead of this weekend's MLS Combine. It should be an interesting event and certainly a better Combine than last year, when Day 1 was the soccer equivalent of watching paint dry.

Before the Combine begins, you should check out my story for ESPN.com on the Generation adidas draft class. It gives a breakdown of all nine players.

For those of you wondering where the soccer TV schedule is, I will be posting it on Saturday morning. These are the early matches for those of you wondering:

  • 7:40am- Setanta USA- West Brom at Aston Villa

  • 10am- FSC- West Ham at Newcastle

  • 10am- Setanta USA- Bolton at Arsenal

In other news from the day, LA acquired Stefani Miglioranzi from Columbus for a conditional draft pick while the bigger story was Galaxy director of soccer Paul Bravo leaving LA to become technical director of the Colorado Rapids.

It was a busy day for the Galaxy as the club also announced the participants for the second Pan Pacific Championship. Suwon Samsung Bluewings (South Korea), Shandong Luneng Taishan FC (China) and Oita Trinita (Japan) will join the Galaxy in the tournament, set for Feb. 18 and 21 at the home Depot Center.

Lastly, Houston's Geoff Cameron was forced to leave U.S. national team camp with a hamstring injury that could sideline him for two to three weeks.

I will be anchoring ESPN.com's coverage of the Combine and both I and SBI correspondent Gianfranco Panizo will be in attendance to bring you all the action. I will also be working to give you all the off-field activity such as all the trade talk sure to take place.

For now, feel free to share your own thoughts on what you are hoping to happen this weekend at the Combine and this week before the 2009 MLS Draft.

Enjoy your weekends and all the soccer action.

Comments

  1. If Migs is building then I underestimated how bad LA was this year. He’s a solid player but not exactly great. Oh well I wish him the best, except when playing the crew of course.

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  2. Nice info on ESPN piece, I printed that and your draft one out so we may be armed with the latest pertinent info., as the UNOFFICIAL MLS scout that I am, LOL!!! Not sure what day yet, but can’t wait to go. See ya hopefully soon.

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  3. Ives,

    Your ESPN piece projects Frei in front of Wallace and Hall. That would shake things up a bit. Maybe DC would have a shot at Alston AND Hall, which would be a great draft.

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  4. In Friday night action, Jay DeMerit had a miserable outing against Reading with some dreadful errors that were reported throughout the British press. At one point he was lying prone on the pitch with a Reading player kicking the ball off of him. This may well impact his 1st team stauts – only saving grace is that the Watford defense is so bad that I’m not sure if there are any suitable replacements.

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  5. Uh, KSK is up by 1800 votes now. But whatever, solidly in 2nd with 20% of the vote is a pretty significant accomplishment for a soccer blog, if you ask me.

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  6. Just read your espn piece. Thanks for the discussion of each of the players. I have one concern about the various quotes. There is a marked tndency to focus on athleticism defined as being big, strong and fast. While these are not unimportant characteristics, we need to beware of falling into the trap Billy Bean talks about in baseball recruitment. The most important factor is talent at hitting, fielding, and throwing. This seems to apply to soccer in spades. Talent in terms of field awareness, passing, creating opportunities and scoring, is more important than size and even speed. Soccers competitive advantage is that the size of the package is not critical.

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  7. At least MLS didn’t make up some BS reason the Galaxy “qualified” this time. All the other teams won something at least….and then there is LA.

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  8. Pan-pacific championship? I assume that Beckham is the only reason the galaxy are in it. He won’t be here though, right?

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  9. Ives,

    Thanks again for the awesome service & updates you continue to provide. Appreciate it. Can’t wait to find out what goes on at the 2009 MLS Combine as you report it!

    Reply

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