MLS offseason gets busy as player combine looms - USATODAY.com
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MLS offseason gets busy as player
combine looms
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By Ridge Mahoney, Special for USA TODAY
The Major League Soccer offseason hasn't gotten shorter, it just seems that way.
Less than eight weeks after Houston beat New England 2-1 in MLS Cup 2007 to win its
second consecutive league title, players, coaches, general managers and executives are
headed to Ft. Lauderdale for the MLS Player Combine that kicks off Saturday and runs
through Tuesday.
"As a player, you got a few months off, unless you were called into the national team in
January," says former USA defender Jeff Agoos, who played for three MLS teams and earlier
this week was promoted by Red Bull New York to the position of Sporting Director.
Agoos will be in Florida, along with coach Juan Carlos Osorio and a few members of his staff
scouting talent for the MLS SuperDraft to be held in Baltimore Jan.. 18. "Now, maybe you can
take off a few weeks, but if you want to be competitive and have success in this league, that's
what it takes, and that starts with the combine and the SuperDraft."
More than 60 players, most of them college seniors, have been split into four teams for three
days of games. The intensity ranges from all-out to cat-and-mouse. Players coming from
unheralded programs know the combine is perhaps their last chance to stand out enough to be
drafted. In the past, players have sandbagged at the advice of a pro coach so they won't be
taken by another team.
"Maybe that happened a few times in the past," says Kansas City coach Curt Onalfo. "But
most guys can't take that chance. What if the team decides to pick somebody else, or trades
away the pick they were going to use? If anything, some players try too hard at the combine
trying to catch somebody's eye instead of just playing their game."
Onalfo, like most of his counterparts, has been scouting players overseas and at the college
tournaments and playoffs since the MLS season ended. Underclassmen are not invited to the
combine, unless they have signed a Generation adidas contract with MLS which means they
bypass collegiate eligibility.
Junior forward Patrick Nyarko (Virgina Tech) was one of six college underclassmen signed by
the league to adidas contracts, along with three high school players. All nine are eligible for the
SuperDraft.
All-American senior striker Joseph Lapira (Notre Dame) is one of the elite players who will not attend the combine while he
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MLS offseason gets busy as player combine looms - USATODAY.com
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decides whether to sign with MLS or try to land a contract with a foreign team.
A slew of NSCAA first- and second-team selections will be at the combine, including defenders Eric Brunner (Ohio State),
Julius James (Connecticut), Pat Phelan (Wake Forest), and Andy Iro (University of California-Santa Barbara); midfielders
Peter Lowry (Santa Clara), Andrew Jacobson (California), and David Roth (Northwestern); and forward Xavier Balc (Ohio
State).
Phelan played against Balc and Brunner in the men's College Cup championship game last month in Cary, N.C., which the
Demon Deacons won, 2-1, and is one of several members of the U.S. under-23 team that is also training in Florida. Others
are Julian Valentin (Wake Forest), Stephen King (Maryland) and Sean Franklin (Cal State Northridge).
The prospects of non-U.S. citizens such as James (Trinidad and Tobago) and Iro (New Zealand) are enhanced by the league
expanding the opportunities for its teams to sign foreign players. Each team can sign up to eight international players
regardless of age. In the past, league rules restricted them to four senior (25 or older) and three junior international players.
Teams also can trade to add additional slots.
At the combine also will be three South American players the league has imported after scouting them in their native
countries.
The hopes of players from small colleges as well as overseas is enhanced by stories such as that of midfielder John Cunliffe,
a native of Bolton, England, who played for Division II Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado. He scored one goal and
three assists in last year's Combine and Chivas USA passed up several heralded players to take him in the first round as the
seventh overall choice.
"It's hard to say if the new rules will encourage teams to sign more foreign players coming out of college," says Agoos. "Most
teams have had only four or five foreign players on their rosters because of the cost of signing those players from overseas
but usually players coming out of college aren't that expensive."
Contributing: Wires
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