Ukrainian-born and American-raised striker Eugene Starikov gave Zenit St. Petersburg, the club that owns his rights, a good glimpse at what they might want to consider keeping after he scored a goal to help FK Tom Tomsk beat Zenit, 2-1, on Saturday.
Starikov was called into U.S. national team camp in January, and spent some time with the U.S. team, but ultimately did not make his debut against Chile, and has yet to actually dress for a match for the United States.
Signed by Zenit in 2009, the 22-year-old Starikov has yet to play for the Zenit first team, having gone on a pair of loans to FK Tom.
Here is Starikov's goal:
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHTe6VjJvJg]
Angel V13 hit the nail on the head. Many immigrants to the U.S. do not have the funds to get onto these club-based youth development teams. He points out that in California, unless you’re paying $2000 season to play, you’re not going to play in a league that exposes you to UNT scouts. The same is true in North Carolina. The elite youth club teams here cost about $1500/year to play on. As well, ON TOP OF the $1500, if you make the team, you have to pay around a $250-500 acceptance fee with most clubs before you can begin to play. These teams also often travel, and the travel and hotel expenses are up to the parents. In a season, you could easily be talking about more that $2500-3000 shelled out by the parents. I’m not saying any of this is necessarily right, but it’s the way it is.
You also got Hejduk (Czech), Preki (Serbian), Janusz Michallik (Polish), Larentowicz (probably Polish), Lalas (Greek), Vermes (Hungarian), Klopas (Greek), and Razov (Croatian)
Kivorski is Macedonian too
Guzan is Polish… and I’m going to go out on a limb a say that Wondolowski is too.
glad u pointed that out..was gonna say the same. He seemed pretty freaking excited
Was there a backflip involved in the celebration of the goal?
Sometimes parent clubs get pissed when their loanees celebrate after they score against them. Hopefully that’s not the case here.
Growing up and playing soccer (both club teams and Latino park leagues) here in California, I can tell you that if you’re not paying about 2k a season, you’re never going to see a ODP scout or a UNT youth scout. From my experience kids that play at the “poor or ethnic” leagues have a better first touch than the kids playing at u-9 to u-15 leve ayso or club. The only issue is they don’t have good coaching because of $$$ restrictions. Can’t blame coaches or scouts, they need to make money and put food on the table. So why take a risk on a kid who can’t pay to play.
I actually watched this game at 3:45 in the morning. If it was any indication of the quality of play in the Russian league then I want more please. Both teams just played the game. There were rarely any theatrics or time wasting antics from players and it showed with the fantastic ebb and flow of this game.
Starikov and the Tom Tomsk goalkeeper where both great. He played long stretches on both the right and left wing. He pushed forward on attack but, at times would run all the way back to where the fullbacks where defending. His dribbling and control with the ball was really impressive. He earned multiple fouls including one where he was “seal-dribbling” the ball on his forehead and the defender took him down. Also, this highlight video doesn’t show it but, the winning goal was scored when his hard shot off a corner was knocked down by the Zenit keeper and another Tom Tomsk player put it away. The fact that he played so well against his parent team was just the icing on the cake.
ha! was waiting for this.
In Soviet Russia, the goal scores you.
Having coached Starikov in high school you dont know how happy it makes me to see him living the soccer dream. He will only improve with time. We are bound to see him in a nats jersey in the future.
Same amount of goals as Agudelo but with more games
I wonder why Starikov did not make his debut with the US team when he was in camp in January? Or why players like Pittman have never been called into camp? Aren’t we struggling at the striker position?
http://bit.ly/wCr0d
Do a little work and Google “Eastern Europe.” Germany is not in Eastern Europe.
No quota system here- just an observation that we haven’t had at the NATIONAL team level much representation from Polish-American, Serbian-American, Ukrainian-American, or other Eastern European backgrounds.
Also, in your rambling, you never once mentioned an actual name. So far, I’ve given 2 that are on the current USMNT radar. So I again ask the question- am I missing any one?
http://bit.ly/wCr0d
Do a little work and Google “Eastern Europe.” Germany is not in Eastern Europe.
No quota system here- just an observation that we haven’t had at the NATIONAL team level much representation from Polish-American, Serbian-American, Ukrainian-American, or other Eastern European backgrounds.
Also, in your rambling, you never once mentioned an actual name. So far, I’ve given 2 that are on the current USMNT radar. So I again ask the question- am I missing any one?
Do a little work and Google “Eastern Europe.” Germany is not in Eastern Europe. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Europe_subregion_map_UN_geoschme.svg
No quota system here- just an observation that we haven’t had at the NATIONAL team level much representation from Polish-American, Serbian-American, Ukrainian-American, or other Eastern European backgrounds.
Also, in your rambling, you never once mentioned an actual name. So far, I’ve given 2 that are on the current USMNT radar. So I again ask the question- am I missing any one?
Nice, helped give Zenit their first loss of the season
starikov is my boy…. the next messi
It seems you and Rudi probably haven’t been followng the US team for more than few years.
Before MSL and NASL there was the German- American soccer league.
Do a little work and google “US mens soccer” and oliok on Wikipedia, “United States men’s national soccer team player statistics”
You’ll find everyone who has ever been capped for the US there. You can use that to make sure where the USMNT is with your quota system.
Kanchelskis 2.0
Really well finished. That’s a kid who knows how to use his head.
Ahh, I miss read that. OK, so he was called in to camp. Good. The more depth we build the better.
I never hear of him. How did that happen? Anyone know, does he have dual citizenship?
Considering how poorly we did with the Latino-American players which could make up at least 50% of our player pool if we looked hard enough, I can’t even begin to think about the other races/nationalities/ethnicities we have neglected.
I’ve always wondered why the USMNT hasn’t had more players of eastern european backgrounds. This is certainly an active soccer community in America.
Lichaj (Polish) and Sacha Kljestan (Serbian) are all that I can think of off the top of my head. Am I missing anybody?
Not alleging any conspiracy here, just curious to me that this very active soccer community hasn’t had more players break through to our top level.
Fantastic header!
yeah surprised about the celebration< but i like it.
Who knows if they will keep him but they didn’t put a clause in his loan deal saying he couldn’t play against Zenit so that says something IMO. Usually clubs don’t allow their loan players to play against their parent club. Still a good goal though!