TennZip

Welcome Dante

You must really be in the know....to say that several of the 2021 soccer recruits will enroll next month. Several....to me....means 3 or more. To my knowledge, there are only two 2021 recruits that we know about.....Sam Harter and Wan Kuzri Wan Kamal. Top Drawer Soccer also only knows of those 2 recruits. I agree with Zip_ME87 comment above....about building the interest of the "casual" fan. We have seen the attendance for zip soccer home games decline over the past 5 to 7 years. Announcements about the players....and why they chose Akron....should build interest in the program. If you are correct that the lack of an announcement is due to the soccer coaches, I do not agree with the decision.

AMEN !!!!!! the 2020 soccer recruits that came to Akron in August 2020.......should have had their accomplishments listed ......4 to 5 months ago. I always enjoy reading Coach Embick's comments about each player. The Athletic department ....under the leadership of Williams and Van Horne....must be too busy celebrating their 1 gridiron win in the last 18 games. The communications dept....was able to do a news release last week on the seventeen 2021 gridiron signees but soccer fans have not seen a 2020 recruiting official announcement for Jason Shokalook, Damon Williams, Paul Jones, Nick Scott , Josue (Josh) Hangi, ...and possibly our starting goal keeper in the spring...Transfer Will Meyer These are top notch players.....they deserve recognition from the sports information department (communications) If I am a potential recruit, I would want to be recognized and celebrated......as I begin my college career. To add to Zip_ME87's point about WMU, our MAC foe added 10 new players for fall 2020....they did 3 separate press releases celebrating these signings...5 were announced on 1/13/20 ; 3 were announced on 4/13/20 and 2 were published on their soccer web site on 5/18/20. WMU does 3 press releases on their freshman recruits soccer for 2020.....Akron does 0.......????? I realize that the zips athletics communications used to be larger...but I am sure that WMU also had cuts in their athletic dept. zips soccer fans deserve better from the leadership of Palchick, Williams and Van Horne ATHLETICS COMMUNICATIONS Sean Palchick Associate Director (Football, WBB, M/W Soccer, Track and Field/XC, Lacrosse, Softball)(330) 972-2677spalchick@uakron.edu Brian Dennison Assistant Director (Football, MBB, Golf, Baseball, Swimming, Volleyball)(330) 972-6292bld2@uakron.edu

Wan Kuzain (brother of the newest recruit...Wan Kuzri)...committed for 2017...but he never came... He instead decided for the Sporting KC USL team Wan Kuzain eventually advanced to the MLS team but did not play much. Sporting KC released the older brother after the 2020 season

Welcome to another 2021 recruit.

This is an Akron Zip board....and we obviously all deservedly want to pay credit to former zip great Darlington Nagbe and legendary former zip coach Caleb Porter. However, I also want to pay credit to the "architect". The architect also has some Akron connections. The architect is 39 year old general manager Tim Bezbatchenko. Bezbatchenko was heavily involved in building the great Toronto teams (won an MLS cup in 2017). This was Bezbatchenko's 2nd year as Crew general manager. He has obviously made brilliant decisions....Nagbe, Zelarayan, etal and this 39 year old leader deserve a ton of credit. The Akron connection for Mr. Bezbatchenko. His grandmother and one of his uncles are both Akron zip mens soccer season ticket holders. Another one of Tim's uncles was the starting QB on some of Jim Dennison's finest gridiron teams in the mid to late 70's. Tremendous credit to Tim Bezbatchenko and Caleb Porter for building a MLS championship team in Columbus.

best part of the article : Quick Hits An ode to Caleb Porter People are going to start thinking Caleb is paying me to say nice things about him. The reality is almost everything I’ve written about him this season was proved to be true on the biggest stage. I’ve said he has an ability to convince his team they can not only win, but dominate any game, no matter how undermanned they are. I’ve also said he builds a culture where winning is expected. We saw both of those traits on show in the final as the Crew took the game to Seattle from the opening whistle and embodied the spirit of their coach. An NCAA College Cup, two MLS Cups — his first being the first in Timbers history, his second coming in just his second season with the Crew where he hasn’t had a crazy budget or anything. Say what you want about him, just remember to include he’s a winner.

I sure do hope that the commentators....talk about the zip 2009 reunion Caleb talks about Teal and Scott in the article

great job, Ben Lundt !!! Congratulations

$650,000 to buy out Bowden. $350,000 to buy out Arth's previous contract. So many bad decisions by the top 2 guys in the athletic department. There are great sports at Akron that are being badly hurt by the top 2 guys continuing to flush money down the toilet for Akron gridiron.

Teal Bunbury and Richie Laryea...included in the MLS team of the week (18 players)

Congratulations to Ben Lundt. first team....GK on all USL team http://nevadasportsnet.com/news/reporters/reno-1868-fcs-kevin-partida-christiano-francois-make-all-usl-team

I think that ACC and sunbelt are playing men's soccer in the fall a few other miscellaneous teams...UAB, Mercer and Kentucky

this should answer one part of your question.... no ncaa soccer tourney in the fall ncaa soccer tourney will be in the spring https://www.ncaa.com/news/ncaa/article/2020-09-16/ncaa-di-council-approves-moving-fall-championships-spring

https://www.mlssoccer.com/post/2020/09/17/deandre-yedlin-mls-5-potential-landing-spots-if-he-departs-newcastle-united-greg

announcers credit the goal to the speed and intelligence of Richie Laryea https://matchcenter.mlssoccer.com/matchcenter/2020-09-09-montreal-impact-vs-toronto-fc/details/video/237194

https://www.mlssoccer.com/post/2020/09/08/why-robin-fraser-believes-colorado-rapids-jonathan-lewis-has-plenty-offer-usmnt

https://www.beaconjournal.com/sports/20200904/copley-senior-sam-harter-excited-about-opportunity-to-play-on-university-of-akron-menrsquos-soccer-team Sam Harter of Copley (yes, he has a very talented left footed brother ? ).....will be playing soccer for the zips in the fall of 2021. Welcome, Sam !!! Go, Zips

Ok, here is the roster.....that currently shows on the website.... 28 players https://gozips.com/sports/mens-soccer/roster On February 3rd, Akron did this news release...when 4 new players joined the team (Hazem Sobhy, Ryan Combe, Jordan Seaman and Gabriel Ramos) https://gozips.com/news/2020/2/3/akron-adds-four-newcomers-to-2020-mens-soccer-roster.aspx there is a PDF you can click in in the article to see that roster ......here are the differences that I can see Gabriel Ramos not on fall Roster Kai Wagner not on fall roster Peter Zecca not on fall Roster New players Transfer - #1 Wil Meyer New Freshman #8 Jason Shokalook #23 Damon Williams #27 Paul Jones #28 Nick Scott #29 Josue Hangi Number changes Colin Biros was #8 in spring... he is #10 in fall Natnael McDonald was #33 in spring #20 in fall Hazem Sobhy #23 in Spring #22 in fall at the end of April, this is what Top Drawer Soccer showed as the zip recruiting class I have highlighted in bold...the players that have made it to campus....Remi Smith changed his commitment from Akron to Air Force. I do not know what happened with Dyson Clapier. 11. Akron Commitments: F Jason Shokalook (Internationals SC – No. 52), M Remi Smith (Atlanta United – No. 177), GK Josue Hangi (Atlanta United – No. 178), D M Ryan Combe (Black Rock FC – No. 188), F Damon Williams (South Carolina United FC – No. 197), Paul Jones (South Carolina United FC), M Nick Scott (Internationals SC), D Jordan Seaman (Internationals SC), M Dyson Clapier (Portland Timbers) Transfers: GK Will Meyer (Louisville), M Hazem Sobhy (Ottawa – AZ) The reclassification of Shokalook is a big boost for Akron’s class, which features five players from the Top 200 player rankings.

Akron soccer posted this tweet today...so I figured that I would start a topic. Hopefully, these fine group of young men will get to play some meaningful games in the spring.

https://www.massivereport.com/2020/8/21/21396597/darlington-nagbes-world-class-goal-proves-what-the-columbus-crew-midfielder-can-do

drop the hammer, Richie

so proud of Richie Laryea https://www.torontofc.ca/post/2020/08/22/richie-laryea-credits-teammates-hot-start-toronto-fc-success