yazan07

Chelsea Youth Academy? Wow not bad. Who was that other guy we had who played for a youth academy in London?

It would be better if the green hippo was a green bobcat

Ah I had heard about the kid from Corinthians youth system, didn't realize that's who Souto was. Glad to see he impressed.

According to GoZips, Quinn and Derschang were held out due to injury. What else can you tell us? Andy and I almost went but we managed to get basketball tickets and opted to watch that meltdown instead. Where did this Souto guy come from? Not on the roster or on top drawer soccer. Any other guys stand out to you?

So who all is going tonight? I was going to go to the bball game but it's sold out and I'm not sure if I even want to watch it on TV.

Sorry ahead of time for being a negative Nancy, but unless Embick has something really big up his sleeve, I don't think our incoming class is going to be very press release worthy, at least compared to what we've seen in past years. I'm used to MLS academy caliber recruits. Usually the guys who come from Internationals SC sit the bench and fill out the practice squad, then some of them transfer out after their first year. Save for our Red Bulls product Adam Najem, we are looking at mostly local guys. I'm not saying these guys aren't quality, but I don't know if they are the quality Akron has been used to. The good news is that there are enough Porter recruits left who played significant minutes the last few years that none of the new guys need to start immediately for us to not sink. But if we don't have a stellar year that brings us better recruits next year, I don't know what happens after that. If the point of promoting Embick was just to keep anyone from jumping ship, I guess we've succeeded there, but what happens when we run out of Porter guys and we've replaced them with less talented players. Not sure you can play Porterball without high quality players. Again, sorry for my pessimism, this is just the way I am perceiving things now.

Oh no not another DJ

We've seen how much variation there can be in the success of these guys when they leave college, and a lot has to do with the situation of the club they join. It looks like DeAndre has a very good opportunity to get significant minutes right from the start. Hope it works out for him.

Hahnemann is #2, but he is probably one of the best #2 keepers in the league. Except for, ya know, Montreal's #2 keeper

After training with the team for several weeks this preseason, Michael Nanchoff is officially a Timber

Well Caleb Porter has been know to live and die by the 3-5-2 haha

Does anyone remember me joking at a tailgate about Porter assembling all the Akron players in Portland? I swear I really was joking and had no insider information, but this is hilarious. Not in a bad way of course. Gotta root for the Timbers now. Total former Zips count at Portland (if everyone is signed): SEVEN (Porter, Nagbe, Zemanski, Meves, Nanchoff, Moreira, Knowles). I wonder if Porter would be willing to pay me to come be a fan in Portland.

2013 Spring Schedule Fri., March 8, at Cleveland State, 7:30 p.m. Sat., April 6, vs. Kentucky, 5 p.m. Sun., April 14, vs. Xavier, 4 p.m. Sun., April 21, at Butler, 3 p.m. Sat., April 27, at Maryland, 2:30 p.m.

So hopefully we get a better show than whatever that was Tuesday night.

Just listened to an interview on The Best Soccer Show with Timbers owner Merritt Paulson. He dropped a couple of interesting pieces of information. In discussing trying to get a US World Cup qualifier at Jeld-Wen field, he brought up his relationship with Jurgen Klinsmann and how he was a big help in the head coaching search. So for anyone who hadn't put the pieces together, Klinsmann was in on the move for Porter to Portland the whole time, which isn't surprising given his comments that he had wanted Caleb to make a move to the professional level. Paulson also discussed the move that almost brought Mix Diskerud to Portland. He said that Mix was interested because he and Porter had built a pretty good relationship during their time with the U-23s, despite the team not qualifying. I guess it almost happened, but when they started talking specifics, Mix would have had to have been a designated player and they decided they didn't want to pay DP money for a kid who was still kind of a project. Just some interesting info I thought I'd pass along.

Boy when I start writing about Akron soccer, you just can't stop me

If I had to go out on a limb, I'd say maybe it has something to do with that Porter guy leaving and the future of our program being totally uncertain. Edit: That probably sounds harsh, but honestly, comparing our commits this year to previous years, it's obvious that Porter leaving led to a dip in a quality of our recruits. Recently it has been predominantly kids attached to MLS academies, the gold standard of youth talent in the US. Before the MLS academy program was big, the bigger recruits came from Bradenton and that's where we were picking them from. Padding out our recruiting classes were kids from Cleveland Internationals, a good local club that we had ties to. Without doing a breakdown of every recruit who has come in the past few years, it seems like the impact players have come from Bradenton/MLS academies, and kids from Cleveland have been the depth guys. Now, if we look at our commits for this year, most of them are from the Cleveland Internationals. I just can't help but wonder if there were more high profile recruits who were thinking about Akron, and when Porter announced he was leaving, maybe they decided they'd play it safe by going to team that wasn't going to be as much of a risk as Akron. The exception I see is Adam Najem. Maybe Gallego convinced him Akron was the place to go, and he'd play right away. Honestly, I'd be more concerned about this recruiting class if it weren't for the fact that we're a bringing back a real solid core: Gallego, Quinn, Brenes, Stevenson, Koroma (hopefully healthy), Derschang, Souders. Those guys all got significant minutes last year, and I'd say player-wise, we are in better shape than our last big exodus in 2010. This aside, I really believe the future of our program is hinging on our performance this year. All eyes are on Embick to see whether or not our program will maintain it's success or if it was just because of Porter. If we can be good again, then I think we get better recruits for the following year because the kids will know Akron is just a good program now, regardless of who is in charge.

Gosh what was I thinking?

Last night Tommy Schmitt, Blair Gavin, and Billy Berger (if you don't know who he is, you're not a real zips fan) were at Manny's during the US game. Thought it was weird that Blair was in town since he was supposedly on trial with Seattle Sounders. Crew8 had a word with him and apparently he is injured again. How does this guy get his career back on track? I feel bad for him, he was supposed to be big, but has just constantly been injured and it seems like he's just going to bounce around teams. I hope the biggest thing he ends up being known for in the end isn't just that awesome mustache he had last season.

Porter is coaching his first game right now against the Colorado Rapids. Nagbe starting up top in 4-4-2, Timbers pressing early and have already had a couple good chances. http://www.mlssoccer.com/live/channel1

lol look at this https://www.facebook.com/questions/10151467...0984/?qa_ref=qd

Shoot. I was hoping for a return of the "player" (bench-warmer) blog and in the nature of CJ's Corner Kicks and Inside the box with Poni, Andy Chiu was going to have a blog called "Andy's Chiuniverse." Now my dream of seeing that realized is over. Btw they really should bring that back.

Steve Nicol? I wasn't alive in 79/80, but the fist Steve Nicol in the soccer world that comes to my mind in the former coach of the Revs.

So Gallego is definitely staying for next season? Bryan Gallego ‏@Gallego_Bryan Watching all these videos and reading all thes articles on the timbers preseason makes me wanna be there noww #cantwait #RCTID and then when someone mentioned him asking about non-roster guys playing for the reserve team in the Summer, he replied with: Bryan Gallego ‏@Gallego_Bryan @ptownEric I will deff b ther in the summer whenever I finish, I really can't wait. Does this mean he is just going to be in Portland training over the Summer and maybe playing in some reserve games? He can't be close enough to graduating that he would be staying to finish the semester and then joining the team in the Summer like some older guys do, right? I still think it says a whole lot about how great of coach Porter is (or maybe just how screwed up the Red Bulls front office is) that Bryan was willing to give up playing for his hometown team to go play for Porter. There was at least one article that featured Wil Trapp that discussed how meaningful it is to play for the team in your hometown that you grew up watching. It was just a really interesting move.

If Meves and Nanchoff get signed, that would put six (and eventually seven) Zips in the Timbers organization: Porter, Pablo Moreira, Cameron Knowles, Darlington, Nano, Meves (Gallego). How cool is that?